Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929–2016) was an Austrian conductor and cellist who helped pioneer historically informed performance of Baroque and Classical music, combining period instruments with close study of historical sources.

Concentus Musicus Wien: An Austrian ensemble founded in 1953 to perform early music on historical instruments. Harnoncourt founded and directed this ensemble, making it the main vehicle for his early-music work.
Historically informed performance: An approach to music-making that uses historical evidence to guide performance choices. This movement names the wider practice that Harnoncourt helped shape.
Vienna Philharmonic: An Austrian orchestra based in Vienna, founded in 1842. Harnoncourt played cello in the orchestra for seventeen years before leaving to focus on early music.
Alte Musik: The German-language early music movement devoted to studying and performing music from earlier periods. Harnoncourt became one of its most influential practitioners and helped bring its ideas to wider audiences.
Leonhardt–Harnoncourt Bach cantata cycle: A recording project that documented all of Johann Sebastian Bach’s surviving church cantatas between 1971 and 1990. Harnoncourt led the project’s first half with Gustav Leonhardt, recording the cantatas with period instruments and historically informed vocal forces.
Period instrument: An instrument built or reconstructed to reflect the design and materials of an earlier musical era. Harnoncourt used period instruments to recover timbres and playing techniques absent from modern orchestras.
Paul Hindemith: A German composer, violist, and teacher whose music and writings shaped twentieth-century musical thought. Hindemith taught Harnoncourt composition and helped form his musical outlook.
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra: A Dutch symphony orchestra founded in Amsterdam in 1888. His long collaboration demonstrated that historically informed ideas could influence a modern symphony orchestra.
Monteverdi Vespers of 1610: Claudio Monteverdi’s large-scale collection of sacred music published in 1610. Harnoncourt’s performance and recording helped establish this work as a landmark of historically informed practice.
Performance practice: The conventions and techniques musicians use to perform music in a particular time and place. His work treated articulation, ornamentation, and tempo as historically specific choices rather than fixed traditions.

Linked from 4 pages