The greater passion, smarter cunning must be to breastfeed it. Alice Harnoncourt knows this only too well when she recalls her adventurous hunts for ancient instruments from Baroque period, in order to rekindle sound of reality. "We invented most tricky strategies to find and snag those instruments that hardly anyone knows today," she says. Tines, shelves, tenor violas, treble violas. "Or does that tell you anything else?"
White hair framed face of widow of Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Reserved laughter mixes herself again and again in her voice this evening at Viennese Music club. Her book, which she presents here, holds her firmly on her lap. We are a discoverer community it says. They are excerpts from diaries of man who died last year, who found Alice Harnoncourt in estate and carefully selected history of his original sound ensemble Trace, Concentus musicus.
The original sound, idea of a spinner. At least many of his colleagues saw this at beginning when stubborn Nikolaus Harnoncourt wanted to know his ideas of a sound ideal almost manically persecuted and enforced. "My husband had a scientific approach to music, so he is rubbed," says Alice Harnoncourt. "At that time you made music out of your stomach, just to feel it. He rejected it strictly. For him, sound had something to do with attitude. " Harnoncourt understood music as a language: if one wanted to speak as in Baroque, one had to learn language, had to know how music was made at that time. This strong researcher did not penetrate majority of musicians, for m original sound remained for a long time an "obscure reserve, blown away by Ruch of dabbling and without any relevance for concert life".
The glass Hall of music Club is full, as full as Concentus would occur today. The former twelve-member ensemble, which was once dedicated to old music of 16th and 17th centuries, has become one of most renowned orchestras. Awarded several times since 1957, it fills halls of cultural organizers such as those of Schwarzenbergpalais, concert hall, Salzburg Festival. Only 241 events took place under direction of Nikolaus Harnoncourt in Wiener Musikverein.
The interest in old music is growing, observing musicology. And yet it surprises Alice Harnoncourt, "that hardly anyone actually remembers genesis of Concentus". To why ir enthusiasm – and ailing "Obstkistln" on which y studied first pieces.
This article dates back to time No. 52/2017. Here you can read entire output.That was 1953. The violinist Alice Harnoncourt and cellist Nikolaus Harnoncourt had just purchased ir new apartment in Viennese Josef City Road. They did not possess much, especially no chairs. Old fruit crates had to be enough for first as seating. Audience-effective productions or applause were not goal of musicians anyway. On contrary, common musical hours were initially only intended as private pleasure.
"I had my first experience with old instruments when I was playing art of Fugue of Bach with a few fellow students of Viennese Music Academy. First, we played completely innocently in a modern string quartet cast. Until we, dissatisfied with all-too-merging sound, began to look for or solutions, "writes Nikolaus Harnoncourt in his records. Bach's sound was more articulated and nuanced in Baroque period. The instruments were richer in overtones, so Tonpalette was more diverse. One heard a greater spectrum of sound than modern instruments, which should above all be one: loud to fill large concert halls.
The violist Kurt Theiner, cellist Hermann Höbarth, Edi Hruza, Violone (a historical string instrument of viol family), Alice and Nikolaus Harnoncourt – "Urconcenti" of first hour – by crawled later libraries after old transcripts from Music fonts. The works of great Baroque and Renaissance composers, such as Henry Purcell, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber or Orlando di Lasso, fell into ir hands. They immersed ir heads in ir finds and wrote m down in laborious manual work and as close as possible to save paper. With secrets of treasure chest, y returned to ir rehearsal rooms. The ensemble was thus officially founded.
Date Of Update: 25 December 2017, 12:02
