We are used to hearing works by Haydn and Beethoven juxtaposed with music from other eras, so it was illuminating to see them alongside two contemporaries in the Australian Haydn Ensemble’s Divine Bohemians program.

It takes its name from the nickname il divino boemo affectionately given to the charismatic Bohemian composer Josef Mysliveček, who spent much of his life in Italy.

Australian Haydn Ensemble: Divine Bohemians. Photo © Laura Manariti

The program opened a Haydn quartet and closed with a Beethoven quartet. These two seminal works – written at the same time (1798-1800) – have a Bohemian connection: both were commissioned by the Bohemian arts patron Prince Franz Joseph Maximilian Lobkowitz.

Haydn’s G major quartet (Op. 77 No. 1) reveals the composer’s consummate skill with this genre. In the first movement, a quirky theme is repeatedly disrupted by bravura passages, ferocious chords, contrapuntal digressions, and dramatic pauses. The Ensemble carried it off with aplomb and gave an assured performance of three contrasting movements that followed.

Moravian Paul Wranitzky was a prolific composer and sought-after conductor in Vienna at the turn of the century. (He qualified as a Bohemian, Artistic Director Skye McIntosh told...