The Schuppanzigh Quartet has been a source of enormous energy in the area of string quartet literature for almost thirty years. Founded by violinist Anton Steck in 1996, the ensemble offers a delightful experience with their intellectually stimulating concert programs and recordings, whose connections to other arts are completely fascinating. So too is their current album with its snapshots of early 19th century Vienna. Beethoven's unruly and ironic "Quartetto serioso" Op. 95 is paired with a quartet by the French violinist Pierre Rode, for whom the master had written his last violin sonata Op. 96 in 1812. Consequently, this work is also recorded here – not in the original, but in an astonishing quartet version that Beethoven's pupil and friend Ferdinand Ries arranged. And so it sounds almost a bit like Dvořák...