Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Austrian conductor, cellist, and viola player Nikolaus Harnoncourt was a towering presence on the international music scene for over six decades. Whether with the period-instrument players of the Concentus Musicus Wien – one of the most innovative and unusual ensembles of its age, which he founded and led until his retirement from public life – or with the modern forces of orchestras, such as the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, he was tireless in his explorations of music from Monteverdi to Gershwin. Far removed from the stereotype of the dictatorial conductor, he was known for his collaborative and flexible approach, and for his endless curiosity and energy, inspiring confidence and respect in his fellow musicians. While fascinated by all aspects of performance practice and its history, his aim was always to bring the music of the past alive in the present. Born into an aristocratic and musical family in Berlin in 1929, Harnoncourt grew up in the Austrian city of Graz. He studied cello first with Paul Grümmer, then Emanuel Brabec, and took up a post as a cellist with the Wiener Symphoniker in 1952. Though he stayed with the orchestra for 17 years, working with conductors such as Furtwängler and Karajan, he felt Baroque and Classical music could benefit from a different approach. While still students, he and violinist Alice Hoffelner, his future wife, had begun experimenting with period instruments, for which they searched Vienna, often unearthing them from churches where they had lain hidden since the late 18th century. In 1953, they founded the Concentus Musicus Wien, which gave its first public performance in 1957 and for which Harnoncourt prepared his own editions from copies of manuscripts he made in libraries and archives across Europe. Among their many landmark achievements are the legendary Bach Cantata project Harnoncourt undertook with Gustav Leonhardt, particularly notable for its use of boy soprano soloists, and his celebrated Monteverdi opera cycle. He is also remembered for his role in reviving the viol as a solo and ensemble instrument. Harnoncourt taught performance practice at the Mozarteum and lectured at the Musicological Institute of Salzburg University. He also established the Styriarte Festival in Graz, and wrote numerous essays and several books. In all, Harnoncourt left a legacy of over 500 recordings of Classical and Romantic as well as Baroque works, featuring modern orchestras as well as the Concentus Musicus. His readings of the Beethoven symphony cycle with the COE and the Brahms with the Berliner Philharmoniker were highly acclaimed, as were his interpretations of the Mozart-Da Ponte operas with the Concentus Musicus. In the first decade of the new century he recorded works by Berg and Bartók and, in 2009, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, a work he had known and loved since childhood. Harnoncourt died in 2016, at the age of 86, having retired just three months earlier.