Michael Kelly, the first Don Basilio in Figaro, recalls a Viennese quartet party in 1784 at which ''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''. They were Haydn (first violin), Dittersdorf (second violin) Mozart (viola), Vanhal (cello). They all wrote quartets, of course, and Dittersdorf was rash enough to accept, if with a becoming show of modesty, a contemporary view that his could stand beside or even above Haydn's. It is not so. The manner is there, as this pair of works shows, with a lively melodic invention, good independent part-writing, some enterprising (though sometimes awkward) harmonic experiments. The matter is missing. There is none of Haydn's wonderful quickness of wit, his intelligence, his ability to make the listener hear a simple phrase, even a set of repeated notes or a single interval, as charged with unexpected music once he has begun to develop his sonata structures.
Dittersdorf is an unfortunate witness to Haydn's greatness in the medium but for anyone with moods for more relaxation than Haydn ever provides, Dittersdorfs quartets are pleasant enough. So are the quintets: they, too, are easygoing music, well suited for diversion, as indeed they are close to the divertimento manner. The playing is friendly, the recording lucid.'