Light and shade: that seemed to be the prospect in this Remembrance Day concert. Both works were by Mozart — his bubbling and sublimely melodic clarinet concerto in A major, and his Requiem Mass in D minor. And yet, did the Remembrance Day backdrop make the clarinet concerto’s central Adagio sound especially poignant, and just like a reflection on a life now ended? Certainly it seemed that way in soloist Mark Simpson’s masterful performance — Simpson, reading music at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, is a former BBC Young Musician of the Year, and it was not difficult to see how he had gained the title.

Meanwhile the outer movements sparkled, with the Philomusica players sounding as if they had quickly adapted to their guest conductor, Christ Church Cathedral director of music Stephen Darlington.

The Requiem was an intriguing prospect. Musicologist Timothy Jones has made a new attempt to compensate for the fact that Mozart left the work substantially unfinished.

Jones read music at Christ Church, and, appropriately enough, his version was performed at this concert. It would take a whole page to dissect Jones’s project in detail, but basically he has reworked the normally performed score, as completed by the much-maligned Süssmayr. The Osanna fugues, however, are newly built from Mozart’s original sketches.

Frustratingly, I can’t offer a balanced view of the result. In a packed cathedral, the good seats were occupied by paying concertgoers, and I was placed behind a thick pillar, to the rear of the double basses, and soloists Jeni Bern, Liora Grodnikaite, Benjamin Hulett and Timothy Mirfin. However, it felt as if Jones had added considerable clarity to the score without losing any of its emotion or grandeur — all of which seemed well reflected by conductor Darlington, orchestra and soloists, and a committed performance from Christ Church Cathedral Choir. It would be great to hear Jones’s version properly: how about a CD, guys?