Founded in 1949, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is something of a stripling but a recent poll in Gramophone magazine voted it the sixth greatest orchestra in the world. This concert of Mozart and Bruckner showed why. Its chief conductor, Mariss Jansons, clearly trusts his players; they responded with playing as flexible as it was disciplined.

According to Mozart’s letters, when he arrived in Linz in 1783, his host wanted a symphony. Since he didn’t have one with him, Mozart wrote his Linz Symphony in just four days. Needless to say, there are no signs of haste. At first the Bavarians seemed to be applying a gloss finish but passion soon showed through. Nothing was reckless. Instead there was the relaxed precision that comes from players who listen to each other; strings mellow and warm, wind instruments chattering away merrily. Suave and lightfooted, this was Mozart with a gleam in his eye.

If Mozart could knock out a symphony in four days, Bruckner worried at them for years on end. That leaves several versions of his Fourth Symphony to choose from; Jansons opted for last rather than first thoughts. This orchestra established its Bruckner credentials under its founder, Eugen Jochum, and performs his music with grace born of muscular power.

Jansons gave this symphony a sturdy narrative logic. Time after time, as the music faded into silence at the end of a phrase, it seemed we were hearing a mighty organ, a single instrument rather than one hundred different voices. Not bad for a radio band.