Schuppanzigh Quartet

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.^[1]

In 1805 Schuppanzigh formed his own quartet; the other players were Joseph 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.^[1][2]

In 1808, Count Andrey Razumovsky, who was an amateur musician and enjoyed gathering musicians in his palace to play chamber music, commissioned Schuppanzigh to assemble a new string quartet. This was a permanent arrangement, the members being given lifelong contracts. Louis Sina played second violin, Franz Weiss played viola and Joseph Linke played cello.^{[1][3][4]: 112}

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.^[4]: 58