Haydn's Miracle

The Australian Haydn Ensemble (AHE) presents a program where miracles and fantasies abound, featuring Haydn’s Miracle _Symphony and _Fantasia Quartet along with Schubert’s Rosamunde Quartet and Purcell’s Fantasia No. 8.

An audience is so enraptured by a symphonic finale that they rush as one toward the stage at the very moment a chandelier crashes to the floor behind them. Nobody is injured and Haydn's Symphony is given the nickname Miracle forevermore. Alas, this story is now considered fake news, but the fact that music has miraculous powers needs no checking, and here is a concert in which musical wonders never cease.

The AHE quartet returns to Haydn’s Op. 76 with No. 6 in E flat major. It’s often called the “Fantasia” after its utterly captivating slow movement.

Another miracle: Schubert’s sublime Quartet in A minor was 200 years old last year. When you hear it leaping off the page on gut strings, stripped of vibrato-soaked varnish, it’s like a world premiere. The harmonic language of the menuetto alone is literally marvellous: what creative process led him to take a jaded dance-form on such a mysterious and melancholy journey? And the transformation of the_ Rosamunde _theme; again, truly fantastical.

As Fantasy Genre permits, the Ensemble then briefly steps backwards in time to savour one of Purcell’s deliciously piquant Fantasias in 4 parts, No. 8 Z 739 (originally for viols) before being joined by flute for a headlong charge into one of Haydn’s London symphonies: No. 96 in D major, brimming with infectious bon amie.

More information: https://www.australianhaydn.com.au/haydns-miracle

HAYDN String Quartet Op. 76 No. 6 in E flat major Fantasia

SCHUBERT String Quartet in A minor D. 804 Rosamunde

PURCELL Fantasia in 4 parts No. 8 in D minor Z 739

HAYDN Symphony No. 96 in D major Miracle (arr. Salomon)