The entertaining ghosted memoirs of the Irish tenor Michael Kelly, the first Basilio in Figaro, need to be taken with a fair dose of salt. But there’s no reason to doubt the substance of his story of the quartet party at the home of composer Stephen Storace, whose sister Nancy created the role of Susanna. We can guess that each of the four participants would have offered the select audience a work of his own. Mozart, playing viola, would surely have unfurled one of the quartets he would dedicate to Haydn, alongside one of Haydn’s by now famous Op 33 set. Haydn’s fellow violinist that evening was Carl von Dittersdorf, who would later complain (perhaps with a touch of professional envy?) of the ‘overwhelming and unrelenting artfulness’ of Mozart’s ‘Haydn’ Quartets. The Bohemian Johann Baptist Vanhal, a prolific composer of symphonies, played cello. ‘The players were tolerable’, noted Kelly coyly. ‘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 …’

If the quartet party chez Storace took place in 1785 or 1786 rather than 1784, as Kelly says, the players could have offered Mozart’s Dissonance Quartet, soon to become notorious for its labyrinthine slow introduction. The Bennewitz Quartet’s homage to that famous Viennese evening culminates in a superb performance of the Dissonance: rhythmically strong and supple, always sensitive to harmonic colour (as in their timing and shading of the finale’s sly key shifts) and alive to every subtlety of Mozart’s complex part-writing. Opening the programme, the Bennewitz nicely balance playfulness and symphonic drive in the first movement of Haydn’s Op 33 No 5. They judge the throwaway pianissimo ending to perfection. Using vibrato selectively, the leader spins a sweetly eloquent line in the Largo – an opera seria aria transplanted to the salon. Haydn marks the third movement Scherzo: Allegro. Relishing the music’s darting zaniness, the Bennewitz take him at his word.

Far from being cowed by their celebrated companions, the Vanhal and Dittersdorf quartets sit happily enough between them. Both prioritise decorative grace, courtesy of the first violin, over thematic argument. There is minimal motivic interplay à la Haydn and Mozart. But there are good tunes, and plenty of surprises en route. The Vanhal opens with a gracefully lilting Allegro moderato that may have been inspired by the siciliano finale of Haydn’s Op 33 No 5, and ends with a catchy contredanse that encloses an episode in the fashionable ‘Turkish’ style, plus a sudden bout of virtuosity for Vanhal’s own instrument. The buffo chatter in the first movement of the Dittersdorf is enlivened by sudden plunges to remote keys, while the tarantella finale includes an earthy folk dance over bagpipe drones and ends with frolicking triplets high in the stratosphere, like birdsong. If this quartet was played at Storace’s, Haydn’s violin technique may have been stretched to the limits. No such problems for the Bennewitz leader, of course, whose virtuosity and imagination shine through each of these delectable performances.