Music / Australian Haydn Ensemble. At Gandel Hall, NGA, October 30. Reviewed by NICK HORN.

The Australian Haydn Ensemble, under Skye McIntosh’s leadership, presented a program based around intriguing arrangements of two classical favourites: Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor (arr. Giambattista Cimador 1820) and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 in F (arr. Frederick William Crouch 1821).

The program opened with an elegant performance of Luigi Boccherini’s String Sextet in F (1776). This was presented by the core ensemble of two violins (McIntosh and Matthew Greco), two violas (Kristen Linfante and Rafael Font), cello (Daniel Yeadon) and double bass (Pippa Macmillan). The standout was the prestissimo, with the ensemble evoking the wit of Boccherini’s music with its sudden stops and starts and unexpected modulations.

This was followed by Cimador’s Mozart arrangement, with Mikaela Oburg blending well with the group on classical flute (proxy for a full woodwind and horn section), her solo lines emerging clearly even if the sound was somewhat submerged in some of the tutti sections. The violins cut through with the lower strings contributing a satisfying oomph! factor. The chamber setting contributed transparency to the melodic line in the andante, and emphasised the drama of the startling harmonic breakdown half-way through the final movement.

After the interval, we heard the world premiere of Australian composer Ella Macens’ Forever Ours for classical string sextet, commissioned by the ensemble.

The piece – inspired by a mysterious letter of Beethoven’s to an unidentified lover, never sent – is framed in its first and fourth movements by a haunting, fragmentary two or three-note motif, placed just-so by each individual player as it is passed around the group, evoking careful, deliberate steps out on to an icy lake (or a letter never delivered).

A fuller, more connected sound develops in the inner movements, breaking out into a lyrical folk-like theme over a lively rhythm in the bass. This is a fine, and finely performed, modern cameo, a worthy vehicle for the ensemble’s musicianship.

The last item was the most ambitious: a revival of the Crouch/Beethoven Symphony No. 8, maybe 200 years after its last performance. This work looks back to Haydn in its drama, surprises and prankery, and looks forward to more modern music in its experimental structure. Oberg again joined the group on flute, but much is lost in the absence of symphonic forces of woodwind, horn, brass and tympani.

However, the stripped-back arrangement offered a sense of how strange this symphony must have sounded when first heard: the first movement octave oscillations, the odd metronomic character of the second movement, the final movement’s protean nature, with its fully developed coda in a remote key, and always those furious repetitions, to the point of exasperation – this music just refuses to lay down and die!

The Australian Haydn Ensemble is making an admirable contribution to the evolution of historical performance practice in Australia. After 13 years it is still pushing at the boundaries and opening our ears to new and surprising sounds.