The second half of the Proms sees a proliferation of foreign orchestras, with the August Bank Holiday graced by the Budapest Festival Orchestra under founder-conductor Iván Fischer and a programme of Mozart in 1791, his last year of life.

Replacement baritone Hanno Müeller-Brachmann sang from memory the springtime concert aria “Per Questa Bella Mano” with long shapely phrasing, a beautiful legato spoiled twice by glottal-stops and an appreciation of Mozart’s wit as he addressed his love song to the curvaceous solo double-bass, played flirtatiously by Zsolt Fejérvári. The soloist’s podium was next occupied by basset horn player Akos Acs to perform the Clarinet Concerto on the instrument it was written for that autumn as Mozart put off again July’s mysterious Requiem commission. Acs made ominous the sonorous low register. Accompaniment and he parted company once, but redeemed themselves in the fragile pianissimo whisper in the adagio.