Violinist Richard Tognetti’s appearances as guest director with ensembles other than his own Australian Chamber Orchestra are not to be missed. His combination of apparently laid-back style with tight discipline and sunny demeanour is irresistible, and in this concert with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, his work with them was clearly enlightening in exactly the sense that their ever-questing, ever-questioning ethos seeks to embrace.

A first half of young Mozart (the Divertimento K138) and teenage prodigy Mendelssohn (the String Symphony No 10), with Tognetti stepping forward as soloist in Haydn’s Violin Concerto No 1 in C was beautifully judged, with Haydn’s finale dancing along. All except cellos and basses stood to perform – how fascinating to see so many of the OAE players emulating their director, taking on a whole new fluidity, freed up and joyfully going with the flow.

It’s also Tognetti’s commitment to the virtues of gut strings that made his collaboration with OAE a logical one, though it was in the second half of more Romantic repertoire that the gentler, purer sound, sounded most different. Segueing from Grieg’s Poème Erotique for strings and harp (the Op 43 No 5 miniature for piano in Tognetti’s own subtle arrangement) into Elgar’s Sospiri, created a rather elegant pairing. Dvořák’s Serenade, Op 22, a string staple, then emerged with a new zest and brilliance. But nothing spelled out Tognetti’s inspired let’s-do-it pragmatism better than the evening’s encore, the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. The perfect piece, he mischievously suggested, since they already got the harp, with the bonus that, without hundreds of strings to contend with, the harpist (Tanya Houghton) could, for once, be properly heard. It was captivating for its simplicity and, by the end, an utter stillness.