By 
Ten years after Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s death on 5 March 2016, an exhibition running in Vienna until 20 January 2027 goes back to the beginnings: Die Harnoncourts und der Concentus Musicus – Gründerjahre in der Josefstadt 1953–1972 (“The Harnoncourts and Concentus Musicus – The Early Years in Josefstadt, 1953–1972”) tells how, in the couple’s flat at 17 Josefstädter Straße in Vienna, a handful of musicians embarked on an adventure that would permanently change the way we hear early music.
The exhibition is being held at the Bezirksmuseum Josefstadt, a particularly fitting venue: Alice and Nikolaus Harnoncourt lived in the district, where Concentus Musicus was founded in the mid-1950s.
On 9 September, the exhibition will be complemented by a concert by Concentus Musicus Wien, conducted by Stefan Gottfried, at the Piaristenkirche Maria Treu, with works by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Romanus Weichlein and Georg Muffat.
Meanwhile, in Linz, Austria, the Nikolaus Harnoncourt Zentrum (NHZ), founded in 2023 at the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität, is dedicated not only to preserving but above all to keeping alive the ideas of the Austrian conductor and of his wife Alice Harnoncourt, an essential partner in the Concentus Musicus Wien adventure. Its extensive archive, built up over nearly seven decades, is gradually being catalogued, digitised and made accessible to researchers and the public.
But the Zentrum is not intended to be merely an archive. Research, Summer Schools, workshops, initiatives aimed at young people and the “Denkwerkstatt”, an interdisciplinary forum for reflection, all extend this conception of music as a means of knowledge and enquiry.
An oral history project is also collecting the memories of those who worked alongside Alice and Nikolaus Harnoncourt: Milan Turković, Thomas Hampson, Otto Biba, Thomas Angyan and, more recently, their son Philipp Harnoncourt. A new interview is published online each month.
You must be logged in to be able to post comments.
Sign in