Michael Haydn revived and doing fine with Chamber Players

Many things had to be left out of "Amadeus," Peter Schaffer's unforgettable play about the life of Mozart (made into a film by Milos Forman). Still, it's fun to think what the playwright might have done with Michael Haydn. He was Mozart's musical colleague in the court of Archbishop Colloredo in Salzburg, Austria, and younger brother to the more famous Haydn, Franz Joseph. Though Michael was 20 years older than Mozart, he was a good friend. The two had shared authorship of an oratorio when Mozart was 11, and Mozart later wrote a set of duos for violin and viola for Haydn when he was ill. Our imaginary scene: After rudely quitting the court, Mozart sets off for Vienna as Haydn watches through a barred window, knowing he'll never leave Salzburg or achieve real greatness.

Michael Haydn is one of the first-rate among second-rate composers - Hoffmann, Hummel, and Clementi are others - who are condemned to being "revived" every few decades. A little Michael Haydn revival is going on right now. The Collegium Vocale Gent recently sang a program of his delightful part-songs in Cambridge, and Boston Baroque will perform his Requiem in May - work that has some resemblances to Mozart's own Requiem.

On Sunday, in Jordan Hall, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players performed one of Haydn's numerous divertimenti - those multi-movement entertainments, generally written for winds, to help arch-episcopal digestion. This, in D, called for viola (Steven Ansell), double-bass (Edwin Barker), and horn (James Sommerville): an unusual and pleasant combination of instruments in a work of delightful contrasts and passages of bright, virtuoso writing that the symphony players, as usual, managed beautifully.

The program opened with Mozart's Divertimento in E-flat for six woodwinds, a late-teenage work (Haydn might have heard it) that shows Mozart's special gifts of melody and graciousness as well as his worldly experience. Heitor Villa-Lobos's "Quintette en forme de choros," for five winds, was an astringent combination of wild rain forest calls and responses, brilliantly played. The final offering was the first of Brahms's two string sextets, Op. 18 in B-flat.