Mozart wrote his last three symphonies during a few weeks, in a flurry of inspiration so concentrated that one might usefully think of them as a single extended work – at least, that’s the argument the conductor Iván Fischer absorbed from his late teacher, Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Fischer and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment tried it out here by programming the three works end to end, with the interval halfway through the second, the Symphony no 40.

Fischer invited us to applaud after every movement if we felt the urge, encouraging this throughout in a way that made one think about how sometimes conductors lead the audience almost as much as their players. But the result felt less like an exploration of game-changing musical art than the soundtrack to an 18th-century soiree. There was so much stop and start that little chance remained for the music to build any ongoing feeling of tension.

It might have worked better had the OAE been on electrifying form, or had it been clear that Fischer always had something to say. Although he shaped the music naturally and fluidly, it didn’t always sound meaningful, especially in the little repeated phrases that Mozart uses so much. The playing was warm-toned and supple but the violins could sound edgy and balance was patchy. Making the oboes stand up for some little four-note interjections in the finale was a typically quirky Fischer touch, but more generally the reed instruments struggled to be heard. The question of how jaded listeners might be made to hear such works as this anew is always pressing, and this isn’t the answer.