Harnoncourt, Nikolaus (in full, Johann Nikolaus de la Fontaine und d’Harnon-court-Unverzagt)

Harnoncourt, Nikolaus (in full, Johann Nikolaus de la Fontaine und d’Harnon-court-Unverzagt), eminent Austrian cellist, conductor, and musicologist; b. Berlin, Dec. 6, 1929. His father, an engineer, also played the piano and composed; the family settled in Graz. He began to study the cello at the age of 9, later training with Paul Grümmer and at the Vienna Academy of Music with Emanuel Brabec. He was a cellist in the Vienna Sym. Orch. (1952–69). He founded the Vienna Concentus Musicus (1953), which began giving concerts in 1957, playing onperiod instruments or modern copies. The group made its first tour of England, the U.S., and Canada in 1966. From the mid-1970s he also appeared internationally as a guest conductor, expanding his repertoire to include music of later eras. His writings include Musik als Klangrede: Wege zu einem neuen Musikverständnis (Salzburg and Vienna, 1982; Eng. tr., 1988, as Baroque Music Today: Music as Speech; Ways to a New Understanding of Music), Der musikalische Dialog: Gedanken zu Monteverdi, Bach und Mozart (Salzburg, 1984; Eng. tr., 1989, as The Musical Dialogue: Thoughts on Monteverdi, Bach, and Mozart), and Die Macht der Musik: Zwei Reden (Salzburg, 1993). His wife, Alice Harnoncourt (b. Vienna, Sept. 26, 1930), studied violin with Feist and Moraves in Vienna and with Thibaud in Paris. She became concertmistress of the Vienna Concentus Musicus at its founding.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire