"This is an extraordinarily exciting and rare find--a long forgotten and unknown string quartet of the first rank. Equal to but different from the Beethoven Op.59, an undeniable masterwork."
—Editor of the Chamber Music Journal
Count Andrey Rasumovsky was the Tsar’s ambassador to the Habsburg Monarchy in Vienna during the first decades of the 19th century. He was an accomplished amateur violinist and an avid string quartet player. As he had the means to do so, Rasumovsky commissioned several composers then active in Vienna to write string quartets for him. Among these were Beethoven, of course, but also Franz Krommer, Louis Spohr, and Franz Weiss. The String Quartet in C minor, Op.8 No.2 is the second of a set of two which were brought out in 1814 after being completed and premiered the preceding year. The fact that Weiss was part of the string quartet that premiered all three of Beethoven’s Rasumovsky quartets clearly influenced his compositional thinking. Weiss’s first three string quartets came out in 1802 and were typical of the quartets then being produced at that time. But by 1814, Weiss had already become familiar with the advances made by Beethoven’s Rasumovsky quartets, which were composed in 1806 and published 2 years later. But he also had come to know Beethoven’s Op.74 (The Harp) and Op.95 (Serioso), dating from 1810. These two works also influenced his thinking. This Quartet is written on a huge scale, lasting nearly three-quarters of an hour. It is in four movements: Allegro agitato, Adagio, Scherzo allegro, and the finale, also an Allegro. The two outer movements are indeed quite massive, each almost the length of a normal quartet from that period. Rather than describing each movement, we will let the generous soundbites we offer speak for themselves.
Franz Weiss (1778-1830) was born in the province of Silesia. He studied violin with Gotthard Anton Stolle in Konigsaal near Prague. By the time he arrived in Vienna, sometime around 1800, he had perfected his technique as a virtuoso violinist and violist. Some sources indicate that he may have then taken lessons in composition with Emmanuel Aloys Forster. After arriving in Vienna, he proceeded to give several concerts as a violin soloist, which eventually attracted the attention of Ignaz Schuppanzigh (1776-1830), who invited him to play viola in an informal string quartet. Some years later, in 1808, at the behest of the Russian diplomat and chamber music patron Count Andrey Rasumovsky, Schuppanzigh formed a string quartet which served as the Count’s private house quartet. It gave concerts on a weekly basis at Rasumovsky’s palace in Vienna. This informal quartet, as were all such groups at the time, evolved into the first professional string quartet in Europe. It was the first quartet to give public subscription concerts. Schuppanzigh, a close friend of Beethoven, to whom he had given violin lessons, was Beethoven’s obvious choice to premiere his string quartets, including, of course, the so-called Rasumovsky Quartets, which the Count had commissioned. When Schuppanzigh left Vienna in 1814, a few years later, Josef Bohm reformed the Quartet in which Weiss again took the role of violist. When Schuppanzigh returned to Vienna in 1823, he took over the Quartet again with Weiss as violist. They then premiered all of Beethoven’s Late Quartets. This in itself gives the Schuppanzigh Quartet historical significance. Weiss, being the violist of the Quartet, had a front row seat, so to speak. In addition to his role as violist in Schuppanzigh String Quartet, Weiss frequently performed in concert as a violin soloist, and also organized quartet concerts in which he played first violin. While most of his compositions were for chamber music ensembles, he did write concertos, operas, and a symphony
From the title page of the publication, shown above, it is clear that Weiss was too anxious to make it eminently clear that he was an “attaché in the service of Rasumovsky.” And in the writing of this quartet, he was also anxious to demonstrate what he had learned from the advances that Beethoven had pioneered. But he was also anxious to demonstrate that his quartet was no mere imitation of Beethoven but something entirely different, which players and listeners will quickly realize as soon as they hear this outstanding work played. There is no question but that this is a masterwork.
While there has been one other modern edition, it is almost impossible to obtain and dealers are offering it at between for betwwen $200 and $300. As musicians ourselves, we have tried to keep the price for our fellow players as reasonable as possible, offering the parts alone for less than $50. The score, however, is nearly 124 pages in length, and this reflects the cost of a set of parts and a score. At under $100, it is less than the other edition, assuming you can even find it for almost $200. Our edition was made by senior editors Garik Hayrapetyan and Raymond Silvertrust from the original 1814 edition published the Vienna firm of Anton Steiner.