Franz Weiss (18 January 1778 – 25 January 1830)
[ was an Austrian violinist and ]viola
; german: Bratsche
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*Violin family ...
player, and a composer. He is known particularly as a viola player in the Schuppanzigh Quartet, which was associated with the string quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...
.
Life
Weiss was born in Silesia
Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is spli ...
in 1778;Vienna
en, Viennese
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, he became in the 1790s a viola player in an informal string quartet led by Ignaz Schuppanzigh, which played weekly for Prince Lichnowsky
The House of Lichnowsky or House of Lichnovský is the name of an influential Czech aristocratic family of Silesian and Moravian origin, documented since the 14th century.
History
The noble family first appeared in the Duchy of Pless (Pszczyn ...
.["The early performers of the quartets of Beethoven"]
Elias String Quartet: The Beethoven Project. Retrieved 20 December 2018. He was later a member of Count Razumowsky's private string quartet, established in 1808 and led by Schuppanzigh. The quartet disbanded in 1815 and Schuppanzigh moved away from Vienna.["Razumovsky, Andrey Kirillovich". Paul Nettl, ''Beethoven Encyclopedia''. Philosophical Library, New York. 1956.]
From 1819 to 1823 Weiss played viola in a string quartet assembled by Joseph Böhm. In 1823 Schuppanzigh returned and reformed his string quartet, Weiss again playing viola. The quartet gave the first performances of several of Beethoven's late string quartets.[
Weiss was also well-known in Vienna as a violinist, and regularly held his own concerts, mostly of chamber music. He was a composer, his works including chamber music, piano sonatas, overtures and symphonies.][
]
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Weiss, Franz
1778 births
1830 deaths
Austrian classical violists
Austrian classical composers
People from Silesia