“Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who has died aged 86, was one of the most innovative and influential conductors of the second half of the 20th century, bringing the scholarship and sensibility of historical performance to the mainstream repertoire with sometimes controversial, but always illuminating results,” writes Barry Millington in Sunday’s (3/6) Guardian (London). “With the Concentus Musicus of Vienna, an ensemble he formed in the early 1950s, he recorded, in collaboration with his friend Gustav Leonhardt, the complete sacred cantatas of JS Bach and continued to work with the group in later years. But he also began to operate with modern instrumental ensembles … and, later, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics…. Born in Berlin into a noble family and brought up in Graz, Austria, Harnoncourt was descended from various Holy Roman emperors and other European royalty.… In 1952 he joined the Vienna Symphony Orchestra as a cellist…. Within a year of joining the orchestra he formed a group of like-minded players, among them the violinist Alice Hoffelner, who led the ensemble and whom he married in 1953…. Appearances on the stage in London in the later years included a serene and moving performance of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in 2012.” In addition to his wife, survivors include “sons Philipp and Franz, and daughter, the mezzo-soprano Elisabeth von Magnus.”
Posted March 7, 2016
