Anyone who observes Alfred Brendel walking on to the platform may wonder what the fuss is about. Not the fuss of lauding a great musician, for Brendel deserves the accolades – though this audience remained resolutely seated at the end, preferring to digest the performance rather than glorify a man who has not once played to the gallery. No, the fuss pertains to Brendel’s impending retirement, and the string of farewells he has scheduled in the run-up to his final bow in Vienna in December.

The fact is that at 77 Brendel looks fitter than many younger men. His fingers are manifestly agile, as he proved here in Mozart’s C minor piano concerto K491, the trills of the opening Allegro sounding as crisp as his decorative elaboration of the slow movement. Memory can’t be playing tricks, for he didn’t bring a score, as Clifford Curzon did in his latter years. There is no weariness in his gait, no over-familiarity in his approach to music that is so familiar.