Background
Linke was born in Trachenberg in Silesia (now Żmigród in Poland).
Linke was born in Trachenberg in Silesia (now Żmigród in Poland).
He later lived nearby in Breslau. He studied cello with Lose, the first cellist of the Breslau Opera House, where Carl Maria von Weber was the conductor, and he played in the opera orchestra.
He took part in the first performances of string quartets and other chamber works of Ludwig van Beethoven. He moved to Vienna, and in 1808 he became the cellist in a string quartet which Count Andrey Razumovsky had commissioned the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh to set up. Schuppanzigh"s quartet gave concerts in the Count"s palace.
In December 1808, Schuppanzigh, Linke and Beethoven gave the first performances of Beethoven"s two piano trios Operation
70, and in 1814 they gave the first performance of Beethoven"s Piano Trio Operation 97 (the "Archduke Trio").
In 1815 Beethoven wrote for Linke the two Cello Sonatas Operation 102.
Linke remained with Schuppanzigh"s quartet until it was disbanded, after the Count"s palace burnt down on New Year"s Eve 1815.
Schuppanzigh left Vienna for several years.
Linke was attached to the Erdődys, a Hungarian noble family, and went with them to Croatia. He returned to Vienna in 1818, where he was a soloist in the orchestra of the Theater an der Wien. He was in a quartet assembled in 1819 by the violinist Joseph Böhm, in which the other players were Karl Holz and Franz Weiss, both formerly with Schuppanzigh"s quartet.
Schuppanzigh returned to Vienna in 1823, and Linke joined his re-established quartet, with Karl Holz and Franz Weiss.
In 1824 Beethoven, who had not written a string quartet since his Operation 95 in 1810, composed his String Quartet Operation
127, and in the following year Schuppanzigh"s quartet gave the first performance of this work. They later performed his String Quartet Operation
130 and String Quartet Operation
132. The quartet also gave the first performance of Schubert"s A minor Quartet (Doctorate 804)
After Schuppanzigh"s death in 1830 he was in a quartet assembled in 1834 by the violinist Leopold Jansa. Linke composed several works for the cello, including a cello concerto.
He died in 1837; he was described in an obituary in the music magazine Neue Zeitschrift für Musik:
His way of presenting Beethoven"s compositions was unique, and I have never heard any other cellists with this interpretation, which according to circumstances could be flattering, aggressive, capricious, passionate et cetera, in short expressing himself in the moods required, and so rendering Beethoven"s essential manner.