The
Count had married a sister of the Princess Lichnowsky and was a
cultivated man whose greatest delight was music. He lived in great state
in a palace, then on the outskirts of Vienna, now used as the Geological
Institute. He was closely identified with the musical life of Vienna,
and shortly after these quartets appeared, formed a string quartet of
distinguished musicians, which he maintained for many years, taking the
part of second violin himself. It is almost needless to state that
Beethoven's work took precedence in the repertoire.
The first of the three quartets, the one in F, has an Adagio movement on
which Beethoven inscribed in the sketch-book, "Eine Trauerweide oder
Akazienbaum aufs Grab meines Bruders." [A weeping willow or acacia tree
over my brother's grave.] Beethoven had indeed lost an infant brother
twenty-three years before this event, but it is not likely that he was
thus tardily commemorating him. His brother Kaspar Karl was married the
day before this quartet was begun and it is probably a humorous allusion
to that circumstance.
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