If you were to ask lovers of Classicism in music which historical figure they would like to party with, they should choose Stephen Storace. Why would an English composer who died prematurely in 1796, known, if at all, only for his operas, be a good choice? Storace went down in history as the one who managed to get a string quartet with a line-up including Joseph Haydn, Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Baptist Vanhal to perform. The four Classicists will meet again during the concert of Wrocław Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Shunske Sato, concertmaster of Concerto Köln.

This extraordinary meeting of the most famous musicians of that time took place in 1784 in Vienna. Interestingly, the Irish tenor Michael Kelly, who was present at the venue and whose account of this episode preserves the memory, rated the playing of the four brilliant composers as merely “tolerable”. “None of them played their instrument perfectly,” he wrote, recalling how much pleasure he received from... the dinner after the concert. However, Kelly had no doubt that he was witnessing a sensational musical event. The four artists “aroused some interest, which I think will be understood when I mention their names,” he wrote in his memoirs.

Haydn and Mozart are, of course, two famous Viennese Classicists. The work of von Dittersdorf and Vanhal was an important link in the development of Classical style, in which both achieved mastery, especially the form of symphony, so important for this trend. The fertility of von Dittersdorf and Vanhal in this genre equals the work of Joseph Haydn. Dittersdorf created over a hundred of them, while Vanhal, his student, was credited with as many as one hundred and forty symphonies (today it is known that he actually composed slightly less). His Symphony in D minor, which will open the concert, brings to mind the dark works of Haydn created in the period of Sturm und Drang. At the opposite extreme will be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s joyful First Violin Concerto, written by him at the age of nineteen. Dittersdorf’s achievements will be represented by a minuet from his most famous chamber piece – String Quartet in E flat major. The finale will feature Symphony No. 60 by Joseph Haydn, in which the composer freely expressed his sense of humour.