The 22-year-old Mozart had every reason to rave about the 90-player-strong Mannheim orchestra. Music was booming there, thanks to a unique blend of instrumental virtuosi and innovative composers: Johann and Carl Stamitz, father and son, the most original and prolific composers of the Mannheim school – a still somewhat underrated period.

The importance of Carl Stamitz’s clarinet concertos cannot be overestimated - while laying the foundations for similar works by Mozart, Weber and Spohr, he also created inspiring masterpieces.

Eduard Brunner is an ideal advocate, whose performance of the concertos fuses the thrilling Mannheim idiom with his own modern sensitivity.