The English Concert is under new management. While leaders of period ensembles often lay down the law from the solitary keyboard, new director Andrew Manze, playing at the helm of the violin section, is right in the thick of things.
And he's right in with the audience, too, introducing works earnestly in a way that's rather refreshing and likable even while it's schoolmasterly. When he wishes us all a good evening, it's all we can do not to intone "Good evening, Andrew" back at him.
That first chat was to tell us that the programme had been reversed - a good idea, as it meant we got to end with CPE Bach's Orchestra-Symphony No 1, its two outer sections a riot of jazzy syncopations, nose-diving violin runs and exuberant horn trills. Even the encore - the finale of the same composer's Third Symphony - couldn't trump this.
And Haydn's Symphony No 64, with the sobriquet "Times are changing", seemed an apt place for Manze to start after all. The opening bars, soft, fast-moving and absolutely taut, were a reminder of this ensemble's high calibre.
The second movement, with its wrong-footing pauses, came over well despite small discrepancies in tuning, which gave the ensuing crisp minuet a slightly harsh edge. The new resident violin soloist was showcased in Mozart's A major violin concerto, and though Manze's phrasing during the first movement could be uncharacteristically lumpen, the second was expansively romantic, and there was real unfettered drama in the Gypsy-style episodes of the third.
In the midst came the evening's greatest challenge - that of bringing excitement to good old Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, a work that's well loved even though we all associate it with being put on hold, and even though it bores most string players to tears.
Did it sound fresh? Well, not entirely - but the ensemble had a good try, playing the middle section of the minuet as if it were wafting in from next door, and consistently finding light and shade if not revelatory new colours. The English Concert can't work miracles. But it is on good form.
