Beaming as he strode on stage, Alfred Brendel might have been starting a career, not ending one lasting more than 60 years. He gave his London farewell concert with the Philharmonia and his old friend, the conductor Sir Charles Mackerras.

Before Brendel appeared, they gave a brisk, clear textured account of Haydn’s Symphony No 104 in D, “London” — aptly, since this German-Austrian pianist has made the city his home. Haydn is also central to Brendel’s personal canon. Through his playing, as well as his ambitious writings on music, Brendel has taught us to hear wit in Beethoven’s apparent madness, to perceive afresh the visionary genius of Schubert’s late sonatas, to discover musical depths beyond the outrageous glitter of Liszt. Without Brendel, would we have grasped these insights for ourselves?

But here his choice was his other god, Mozart. He played the least conventional concerto, the lightly scored K271 in E flat. Indeed, having played it seven times across Europe in the past fortnight, with the Anvil, Basingstoke to come tomorrow, his appetite for it appears tireless.

Between the noble, operatic outer movements lies a slow movement of incomparable beauty in C minor — incidentally, the rare key of K491, the other concerto Brendel is playing on tour before his last goodbye, in Vienna, in December.

The capacity audience rose as one. Brendel doesn’t do histrionics. What could follow? The sublime simplicity of Bach-Busoni: the chorale prelude Nun komm der Heiden Heiland.