Spring is in the air – and in the step of the audience afterwards – when the Australian Haydn Ensemble tracks the progress of the string quartet from its founder Joseph Haydn, through his more than apt pupil WA Mozart to a youthful Felix Mendelssohn in the colourful and atmospheric surrounds of the Paintings Galleries in Sydney’s State Library of NSW.

Among the eclectic collection of portraits on the walls of the three galleries laid out in a T shape are some early Colonial worthies who may well have heard some of the pieces on the program at a Government House reception or dinner.

Australian Haydn Ensemble performs Mozart’s Spring at the State Library of NSW. Photo © Oliver Miller

Artistic Director Skye McIntosh leads the quartet – Matthew Greco on second violin, Rafael Font, viola, and Daniel Yeadon, cello – in a neatly contrived program that starts happily with the hopping and chirping motifs that gave the third of Haydn’s groundbreaking Op. 33 set of six works its nickname, Bird. 

In Australia, where the seasons are less defined than in Europe, we don’t get that uplifting experience when the first...