Sad news that Claudio Abbado's Orchestra Mozart is shutting down operations after 10 seasons of concerts since 2004 - "temporarily", according to a short statement on their website. In combination with reportedly being "clobbered by Italian government spending cuts" last year, Abbado's recent health problems have led to this decision; the orchestra had to cancel its scheduled concerts last autumn and Abbado hasn't led a performance since the summer.

The Orchestra Mozart project was in many ways Abbado's chamber-orchestra-offshoot of the Lucerne experience, with its players mixing some of the most experienced players - bassist Aloys Posch, violist Wolfram Christ, trumpeter Reinhold Friedrich - with the youngest; the orchestra's leader was Wolfram Chirst's son, Raphael, and the orchestra's principal guest conductor was Abbado's young Venezualan protégé, Diego Matheuz. Together, Abbado and the Orchestra Mozart made some of the most fresh and imaginative performances and recordings of classical and romantic repertoire of recent years. It's a minor tragedy that without Abbado the orchestra's future is so precarious: the musicians have worked often without him in any case, and to be able to call on performers of the calibre of Bernard Haitink and Maria Joao Pires as replacements for Abbado and Argerich, as the orchestra did at its Southbank debut concert last October, shows the quality of soloist and conductor they can attract.

For now, alas, there is only the legacy of Orchestra Mozart's recordings - a rare and precious collection in any case (including Abbado's first-ever recordings of a Schumann symphony, a radiant performance of the Second, as well as luminous Mozart symphonies and concertos, and a magnificent set of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos); let's hope there can somehow be more in the future.