It is a brave, even foolhardy, orchestra that performs three classical symphonies back to back as one half of a programme. Yet when the SCO with the inestimable Frans Brüggen at its helm did just this in the rejuvenated Glasgow City Halls at the weekend, the result was revelatory.

In the orchestra's ongoing season of Mozart anniversary celebrations, the composer's Paris was vividly encapsulated by three symphonies written within a decade of each other for that great city, prefaced by a suite of dance movements from the opera Naïs by one of the foremost French composers of an earlier generation, Jean-Philippe Rameau. And whatever the thematic unity of the programme there was no danger of ennui; quite the reverse as the SCO in commanding form demonstrated the multiplicity of inflections, colours and perspectives of this symphonic triptych.

A stooped and frail-looking figure, Brüggen is a conductor whose directorial input appears to be minimal - especially as, with him seated at the podium, a considerable proportion of his gestures seem to be hidden from the orchestra. However, what he brought to this repertoire was a wealth of penetrating insight and understanding. The SCO responded with playing that beautifully differentiated the characteristics of Mozart's Paris Symphony (brilliant and vivacious) from the theatrical swagger of L'Amant Anonyme, a dual-purpose symphony-overture by Chevalier de Saint-George, the so-called black Mozart.

Though this was a concert celebrating Mozart, it was with Haydn that Brüggen made the greatest impression, with a magisterial performance of Symphony No 85, La Reine, which in his hands was shown to be the epitome of classical sophistication but still with the capacity to surprise, whether in the slashing minor-key theme of the first moment or the rustic offbeat accents of the minuet.