Mozart fans have been having a field day with three very different concerts in two months featuring his last – and greatest – symphony, No. 41 Jupiter. In September, Australian Haydn Ensemble played a string quintet arrangement, and next week Simone Young will conduct the full forces of the Sydney Symphony for two performances.

The latest tour by the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra lies somewhere in between. With 35 musicians on stage it is certainly their biggest production this year, and although the use of gut strings lacks the bite of a modern orchestra, it brings the winds and brass to the fore and there was no lack of energy and grandeur in the sound, the musicians driven eagerly by Artist Director Paul Dyer’s focused, almost balletic, conducting style.

Paul Dyer conducts the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra in Mozart’s Jupiter. Photo © Keith Saunders

The all-Mozart program marked the Australian debut of in-demand Italian keyboardist Francesco Corti, whose fortepiano reading of the Piano Concerto No. 23 showed why his CV reads like a who’s-who of historically informed ensembles, including Jordi Savall’s Le Concert de Nations and Masaaki Suzuki’s Bach Collegium Japan.

But first...