The Australian Haydn Ensemble's 2019 Season: australianhaydn.com.au.

Haydn's Farewell is the title of The Australian Haydn Ensemble's next concert. It's particularly apt, since this will be the ensemble's final concert for 2018.

But the 2019 season is not far away.

The group's artistic director and leader, Skye McIntosh, says Haydn's Farewell will be led by guest director and soloist Erin Helyard, "an ongoing friend of the ensemble".

Helyard will be the fortepiano soloist in two Mozart works, the Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major - described by McIntosh as "a light, bubbly, happy piece ... with a beautiful slow movement" - and the Rondo for piano and orchestra K. 386, written about the same time.

Apart from that, the concert has a Sturm und Drang feeling, with the Symphony in G minor Op. 6 No. 6 by J.C. Bach - who was an influence on the young Mozart - and the work that provides the event's title, Haydn's Symphony No. 45 in F sharp minor, the "Farewell", written after an extended period working at a royal summer palace.

McIntosh says, "Haydn was being very cheeky in his way of getting a point across to Prince Esterhazy that it was time for all the musicians to go home to their families."

During the final adagio movement, the musicians leave the stage one by one until there are only two violinists left, "playing a beautiful nostalgic melody".

As well as bidding audiences farewell for 2018, the ensemble are looking forward to their 2019 season.

"There are five different programs in our series going to Canberra."

Haydn's Nature (February 14, 7pm, Wesley Uniting Church, Forrest) features Australian premieres of string quartet arrangements of the composer's choral works, The Creation and The Seasons.

"The reimagining gives you a different perspective on the work, hearing it this way."

In keeping with the nature theme, the other works on the program are the "Sunrise" and "Lark" quartets.

French twist (May 30, 7pm, The Albert Hall, Yarralumla) features string quartet and another ensemble member, flautist Melissa Farrow. It's a program of chamber music exploring Haydn’s connections with 18th-century France through the music of Devienne, Rameau, Jadin and Mozart, whose Flute Quartet in A major has a French-style rondo at the end, McIntosh says.

"He wrote it after he'd been in Paris."

Haydn also features in the Australian premiere of a string quartet arrangement of his Symphony No. 87, believed to have been penned by Haydn himself.

Beethoven Four (August 8, 7pm Albert Hall, Yarralumla) has another Australian premiere, a chamber arrangement of, as the concert title suggests, Beethoven's Fourth Symphony. McIntosh says this arrangement was discovered in the British Library and a copy was made for the ensemble.

The program also has Boccherini's Sextet (Divertimento) for flute and strings in A major G.463 Op.16/3, also featuring Farrow, and Mozart's String Quintet in G minor K.516.

For Delirious Love (Thursday, September 26, 7pm Albert Hall) the ensemble will be joined by Canadian soprano Stefanie True, a Handel specialist who will sing Handel's cantata Il delirio amoroso (The Delirium of Love) telling of the unrequited love of Chloris for Thyrsis. She will also sing Haydn’s cantata Arianna a Naxos. The ensemble will perform Avison’s Concerto Grosso No. 3 in D minor and a rare chamber arrangement of Haydn’s Symphony No. 73.

Finally, Bavarian-Japanese "superstar baroque violinist" Midori Seiler, in her Australian debut, will be guest director and soloist with Midori & Mozart (November 21, 7pm, Albert Hall) . The program, with the largest ensemble of the year, will feature Mozart's Second Violin Concerto and Symphony No. 33 and Haydn's Symphony No. 80 in D minor and his Violin Concerto in C major Hob VII:a1.

"It's fantastic she was able to come."