![]() ![]() One reason that Harnoncourt left the Vienna Symphony was to become a conductor. ![]() One of his final recordings with the Concentus Musicus Wien was of Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. For the Telefunken (later Teldec) label, Harnoncourt recorded a wide variety of the Baroque repertoire, beginning with the viol music of Henry Purcell, and extending to include works like Bach's The Musical Offering, Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, and Rameau's Castor et Pollux. He played the viola da gamba at this time, as well as the cello. The Concentus Musicus Wien was dedicated to performances on period instruments, and by the 1970s his work with it had made him quite well known. In 1953, he founded the period-instrument ensemble Concentus Musicus Wien with his wife, Alice Hoffelner, whom he married that year. Harnoncourt was a cellist with the Vienna Symphony from 1952 to 1969. If you didn't go there every Wednesday and Saturday, the Hitler Youth police would come, fetch you, cut your hair and toss you into a group with other difficult ones who were treated terribly.Īt the Vienna Music Academy, Harnoncourt studied cello with Paul Grümmer and Emanuel Brabec, and also learned viola da gamba. During his youth, he served in the Hitler Youth under duress, where, as he noted: Harnoncourt was raised in Graz, Austria, and studied music in Vienna. The family eventually moved to Graz, where Eberhard had obtained a post in the state government ( Landesregierung) of Styria. Two years after Nikolaus's birth, his brother Philipp was born. His father, Eberhard de la Fontaine Graf d'Harnoncourt-Unverzagt, was an engineer working in Berlin who had two children from a previous marriage. His mother, Ladislaja Gräfin von Meran, Freiin von Brandhoven, was the great-granddaughter of the Habsburg Archduke Johann, the 13th child of the Emperor Leopold II, making him a descendant of various Holy Roman Emperors and other European royalty. Harnoncourt was born Johann Nikolaus Graf de la Fontaine und d’Harnoncourt-Unverzagt in Berlin, Germany. Harnoncourt was also the author of several books, mostly on subjects of performance history and musical aesthetics. In 20, he conducted the Vienna New Year's Concert. His repertoire then widened to include composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Around 1970, Harnoncourt started to conduct opera and concert performances, soon leading renowned international symphony orchestras, and appearing at leading concert halls, operatic venues and festivals. Starting out as a classical cellist, he founded his own period instrument ensemble, Concentus Musicus Wien, in the 1950s, and became a pioneer of the Early Music movement. Nikolaus Harnoncourt ( Johann Nikolaus Graf de la Fontaine und d’Harnoncourt-Unverzagt 6 December 1929 – 5 March 2016) was an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the Classical era and earlier. ![]()
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