He died the Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt – publico

                 

                         
                     

                 

 
 

The Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt died Saturday at age 86. Known as one of the pioneers in the field of interpretations historically informed his work offered another way to understand the music of the past, using instruments of the time, through a repertoire that began in the seventeenth century with Monteverdi and Bach and was always extending throughout his career.

it was also the author of an important essay work, which reflected on the performance practices of the past and the need to understand the peculiarities of the musical discourse at a time, bringing them to current interpretations.

Born in Berlin on December 6, 1929, grew up in Fraz, Austria and studied music in Vienna. Son of a great-granddaughter of Emperor Leopold II, had the name of baptism Johannes Nikolaus Graf de la Fontaine und d’Harnoncourt-Unvertzagt. Last December announced he would end his career due to health problems. “It’s an era comes to an end,” said Sunday ANGYAN Thomas, director of the Musikverein, one of the most prestigious musical institutions in Vienna. “I did not think spend so little time between the time of retirement and his death. [...] He was the original of its original. We must continue the musical heritage that makes us “ANGYAN said, quoted by the Le Monde .

Featured cellist in his youth, Harnoncourt would become one of the most fascinating conductors of the second half of the twentieth century, and by the pioneering impulse that gave the recovery movement of ancient music under the original interpretive principles or the way it was expanding its aesthetic conceptions towards a repertoire ever higher.

in the 60 and 70 at the time of its historical (and revolutionary, against the criteria in force hitherto) interpretations of Monteverdi operas or St Matthew Passion , no one would imagine that the turn of the twenty-first century could find Harnoncourt to lead the Aida , Verdi, and the waltzes of Strauss, collaborating with specialized performers in contemporary music as the French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard (usual interpreter Boulez and Ligeti) or that his recordings of Beethoven’s symphonies to sell a million copies.

in 2001, Harnoncourt was elected musical personality of the year by the magazine Diapason , which justified its distinction with a CD set as diverse as the third record of the Matthew , oratory from Buch mit Sieben Siegeln , Franz Schmidt (1874-1939) and albums devoted to Armida Haydn – with Cecilia Bartoli in the title role – and the New Year Concert 2001.

Since 1953, the year he founded the Concentus Musicus of Vienna (the first European professional group with original instruments), the present, Harnoncourt has continued to diversify its programs gradually going to drive modern orchestras, including the philharmonic prestigious Vienna and Berlin, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. His discography includes more than 250 titles

“What I really want is a greater relationship with modern music with what is written today,. That all living people at the same time with modern music and old music. We have to make of our time, “Harnoncourt told Publico in 1996 during a stay in Lisbon.