Nobody plays Mozart quite like the Vienna Phil. While other orchestras blur into homogeneity, this one has carefully, even stubbornly, preserved an individual sound, one that comes into its own in works by this composer. Up to its elbows in vibrato, and with a warm fatness belying the small forces producing it, that sound is miles away from what we've come to believe the music sounded like in Mozart's day; yet with the weight of Viennese tradition behind it, it has developed its own aura of authenticity.

Guarding a tradition rarely makes for gripping performances, however. This programme could have been conceived as a juxtaposition of Mozart's last, greatest symphony with his first childhood attempt in the genre, or it could have been put together on the back of an envelope. Either way, if the admittedly revelatory impact of hearing that distinctive sound fleshing out the opening of the Symphony No 1 was a surprise, it was the only one.

Pairing the symphony with the sugar-frosted Concerto for Flute and Harp made for a light first half, though the harpist Charlotte Balzereit deserved the spotlight, as did the tasteful flute-playing of Dieter Flury. The violins provided lush if slightly raw support, and Zubin Mehta conducted as if the past 30 years had never happened.

The Jupiter Symphony, No 41, put some meat on the programme - there was some relishable teamwork from flute and oboe - yet even in a work that paves the way for Beethoven, Mehta made the moments of greatest harmonic wrangling sound flat and functional.

You could see the encore, the Marriage of Figaro overture, coming a mile off - especially as it brought further wind players on to the stage, who were in town because the orchestra was on its way to Cologne to play Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Shame that wasn't on the programme here - it might just have lifted the evening out from under its glass exhibition case.