Schuppanzigh Quartet

The Schuppanzigh Quartet was a string quartet formed in Vienna in the 1790s by the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh. It continued, with breaks and changes of members, for many years. Schuppanzigh was a friend and admirer of Beethoven, and the quartet gave the first performances of many of Beethoven's string quartets.

Ignaz Schuppanzigh assembled an informal string quartet for Prince Lichnowsky in 1795. Its membership varied; the more regular players, all aged under 20, were Louis Sina playing second violin, Franz Weiss playing viola and Nikolaus Kraft playing cello. Beethoven's first set of string quartets, Op. 18, which were completed in 1800, were first performed by Schuppanzigh's quartet.

In 1805 Schuppanzigh formed his own quartet; the other players were Josef Mayseder (second violin), Anton Schreiber (viola) and Antonín Kraft, the father of Nikolaus Kraft (cello). Their first concerts took place in Heiligenkreutzerhof, a private house; later in the restaurant Römischer Kaiser.

In 1808 Count Andrey Razumovsky, who was an amateur musician and liked to gather musicians in his palace to play chamber music, commissioned Schuppanzigh to assemble a string quartet. This was a permanent arrangement, the members being given lifelong contracts. Louis Sina played second violin, Franz Weiss played viola and Josef Linke played cello.

In December 1808 Johann Friedrich Reichardt, a composer and writer on music, attended one of Razumovsky's concerts. He wrote:

This quartet was on the whole very well put together... Herr Schuppanzigh has an individual piquant way of playing which is very suitable to the humorous quartets of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven... He executes with clarity, though not always absolutely cleanly, the difficult passages, which the local virtuosi seem to avoid altogether. He also accents very correctly and significantly. His cantabile is often truly singing and moving. He also leads his well-picked colleagues skilfully and truly in the spirit of the composer.

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