Australian Haydn Ensemble: Haydn's Sunrise

If you define “Shakespearean” as art that happily embraces both sublime poetry and earthy humour then Haydn and Beethoven definitely rub shoulders with the Bard.

The AHE commence their season with two wonderful quartets that morph effortlessly fromthe lofty to the lowbrow. Then Fanny Mendelssohn’s quartet, apparently the first ever composed by a woman, offers an elegant, if far from ladylike, riposte.

Beethoven never set Shakespeare, even in translation, but his instrumental works oftencryptically allude to his favourite plays. When the mind’s eye of his lead violinist conjured a lovers’ farewell scenario to the wrenching despair of Op. 18 No. 1’s Adagio, Beethoven confessed its secret link to Romeo and Juliet’s final scene. Interpolations on the sketches reveal a rare literal approach (“He enters the tomb…he kills himself…the dying sighs” ) but the composer wisely decided to let the music speak for itself.

Haydn seemed never to be afforded that…