The Macgibbon String Quartet:
Margot Macgibbon (violin)
Jessie Stewart (violin) Olive Davidson (viola)
Peers Coetmore (violoncello) Dittersdorf was one of Haydn's most distinguished contemporaries: he was an eminent violinist and composer of chamber music and opera, and the friend of both Gluck and Haydn. With the latter he was on very intimate terms, for, as Dittersdorf tells us in his memoirs, ' whenever we heard a new piece, we went through it carefully together, doing justice to all that was good and criticising what was bad in it'.
It is interesting to note that
Stephen Storace , the English opera composer, once gave a musical evening while on a visit to Vienna, and one of the chief items was a performance of a quartet of strings which consisted of Haydn (first violin), Dittersdorf , Mozart (viola) and Wanhal (cello).