Although a program of Haydn chamber music may not necessarily signal anything too radical for a mainstream classical audience, with this concert Australian Baroque show just how resonant well-informed, research-led and highly sensitive Historically Informed Performance (or HIP) Practice in music can be.

Three bite size trios were featured, the G Major (Hob. XV: 25) aka the ‘gypsy’ trio, the A Major (Hob. XV: 18), also with a ‘gypsy’ finale, and the A flat Major (Hob. XV: 14). The concert was just over an hour in duration, and welcomingly informed by tiny musicological lectures in place of program notes, led by the ebullient Dr Geoffrey Lancaster.

Lancaster was at the helm of a genuine 1796 Broadwood piano and demonstrated to the audience how the ‘singing’ or legato-friendly nature of the English piano infinitely informed the performance practice, giving the audience a strikingly accurate picture of the kind of instrument Haydn was writing for, and the intended result for the original English audience.

The Broadwood was charming, delicate and by turns surprisingly full of dynamic variation. It takes a moment for the modern equal temperament and piano forte aligned ear to adjust to its unique sound, but it was never unpleasurable, for each...