Playing Chamber Music
Jens Peter Larsen suggests that "quartet playing was central to the contact between Haydn and Mozart", though the documentation of the occasions in which the two composers played or heard quartets or other chamber music together is slim. One report of such an occasion comes from the Reminiscences (1826) of the tenor Michael Kelly.
Storace gave a quartet party to his friends. The players were tolerable; not one of them excelled on the instrument he played, but there was a little science among them, which I dare say will be acknowledged when I name them:
- First Violin: Haydn
- Second Violin: Baron Dittersdorf
- Violoncello: Vanhal
- Viola: Mozart.
- I was there, and a greater treat, or a more remarkable one, cannot be imagined.
Both Dittersdorf and Vanhal, though little-remembered now, were well-known composers of the time.
The composer Maximilian Stadler also remembered chamber music performances in which Haydn and Mozart participated: the two of them took the viola parts in performances of Mozart's string quintets, K. 515, 516, and 593.
Read more about this topic: Haydn And Mozart
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