Life
Razumovsky was the son of Cyril Razumovsky, the last hetman of Ukraine, and nephew of Aleksey Grigorievich Razumovsky, called the Night Emperor. The elder Rasumovsky's late Baroque palace on the Nevsky Prospekt is a minor landmark in Saint Petersburg. In 1792 Andres Kyrillovitch was appointed the Tsar's diplomatic representative to the Habsburg court in Vienna, one of the crucial diplomatic posts during the Napoleonic era. He was a chief negotiator during the Congress of Vienna that resettled Europe in 1814, and asserted Russian rights in Poland. In 1808 he established a house string quartet consisting of Ignaz Schuppanzigh, Louis Sina, Franz Weiss, and Joseph Linke . Razumovsky was an accomplished amateur violinist, and also known as a competent torban (Ukrainian theorbo) player. Of four torbans known to have been in his possession one is preserved in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. His commissioning three string quartets from Beethoven in 1806 was the act that has made his name familiar. He asked Beethoven to include a "Russian" theme in each quartet: Beethoven included Ukrainian themes in the first two. Razumovsky was the brother-in-law of another of Beethoven's patrons, Prince Joseph Lobkowitz. His first wife, Countess Elisabeth von Thun was a sister in law of Count Carl von Lichnowsky.
Read more about this topic: Andrey Razumovsky
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“We only seem to learn from Life that Life doesn’t matter so much as it seemed to do—it’s not so burningly important, after all, what happens. We crawl, like blinking sea-creatures, out of the Ocean onto a spur of rock, we creep over the promontory bewildered and dazzled and hurting ourselves, then we drop in the ocean on the other side: and the little transit doesn’t matter so much.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“That life protracted is protracted woe.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Viewed narrowly, all life is universal hunger and an expression of energy associated with it.”
—Mary Ritter Beard (1876–1958)