Haydn Ensemble plays classical 18th century quartets

 Yesterday I attended a wonderful orchestral concert played by the Australian Haydn Ensemble. They performed 3 18th century quartets, one each by Haydn, Boccherini, and Mozart - all beautiful works performed excellently. Amazingly, their instruments all dated from the same period! The violins were dated 1770 and 1760; the viola was made in 1793, and the cello was made in London in 1781. The audience applauded long and loudly!

The performance took place in Armidale's historic playhouse which has just been renovated and now holds frequent events. Interestingly, it is very small and seats only about 100 people. Well, yesterday it was house-full and I knew many members of the audience. The top photo shows how closely we were seated. Dot and I wore facemasks for much of the time ... as did maybe 60% of the audience. COVID is now rare in our town, but I guess caution grabbed us.