If this Friday night WASO concert felt a little bottom-heavy, it was only because a main course as long and substantial as Bruckner’s Fourth could only be preceded by two works as short and as light, yet still of outstanding quality, as Mozart’s overture from The Marriage of Figaro and the same composer’s Exsultate, jubilate.

The Marriage of Figaro K492, the first in the Da Ponte-Mozart trilogy of operas, is a perennial audience favourite and its overture makes for an ideal stand-alone treat in a concert program. WASO and Asher Fisch evoked the bustling exuberance and wit of the opera itself with a crisp urgency and finely judged dynamic contrasts.

There was contrast, too, as a slightly smaller band of WASO musicians, joined by star WA soprano Sara Macliver and organist Stewart Smith, took us from the profane to the sacred for another audience favourite, Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate K165.

Essentially a show-offy sacred concerto for voice and instrumental ensemble, this youthful motet was written in 1772 for the castrato Venanzio Rauzzini. Macliver was in exquisite form, the effortless roulades and joyfully leaping intervals of the Alleluia in particular providing a heavenly counterpart to the more earthy exuberance we encountered in the Figaro...