At first sight there seems little to connect the three works in this latest WASO concert. Further investigation quickly reveals that Walton’s Spitfire Prelude and Fugue and Vaughan Williams’ Fifth Symphony were first performed in 1943 (with the composers conducting), amid the tumult of World War Two. Mozart completed his Clarinet Concerto in A major in 1791, not long after the end of the Austro-Hungarian War and as the French Revolution was gaining momentum, much to the consternation of monarchies throughout the rest of Europe.

Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto: Vasily Petrenko conducts the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. Photo © Daniel James Grant

Then we discover that Walton adapted his suite from music written for the film The First of the Few, on the life of the designer of the Spitfire fighter aircraft, Reginald J Mitchell; Vaughan Williams adapted material from his opera The Pilgrim’s Progress, indeed at that stage still a work-in-progress; and Mozart’s concerto was originally written for the wider range of his friend Anton Stadler’s basset clarinet but is nowadays usually adapted for standard clarinet.

Oh, fun fact: both Walton and Vaughan Williams make...