Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Nikolaus Harnoncourt – Mozart: Orchestral Works (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 03:05:14 minutes | 1,71 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © belvedere edition

Nikolaus Harnoncourt is credited with making historical performance practice respectable in Salzburg. His memorable debut concert in 1980 was the prelude to a long string of successes that culminated in the Mozart Week 2006, when Harnoncourt was Artist in Residence and gave his acclaimed ceremonial address on 27 January on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. The inaugural concert and rehearsals from 2006 can be heard on this album. The 3-Discs edition covers the period of Harnoncourt’s influence on the interpretation of Mozart’s music. Between 1980 and 2006, the conductor succeeded in persuading both musicians and audiences to be receptive to new playing and listening habits, while he personally evolved from a pioneer of historical performance practice to an acclaimed maestro. When Harnoncourt made his debut at the Mozart Week Salzburg on 27 January 1980, concert audiences were under the spell of conductors such as Karl Böhm. At that time, beautiful sound and melody were the central themes of an interpretation. Following indications in the original scores, Harnoncourt moulded articulation, tempi, melodies and accompaniments into a new style with new emphases. Reactions to this in Salzburg at the time were mixed. He received both strong criticism and effusive praise. Twenty years later, Harnoncourt became Artist in Residence at the Mozart Week 2006 and was the keynote speaker on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. In the meantime, his ideas on historical performance practice had spread worldwide and developed into the basis for a new generation of concertgoers and musicians. In this edition, Harnoncourt’s inaugural 1980 concert is juxtaposed with rehearsal recordings from 2006. Both provide fascinating insights into the famed conductor’s thought processes.

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Nikolaus Harnoncourt – Mozart: Requiem, K. 626 (1982/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 48:52 minutes | 1,71 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Nikolaus Harnoncourt describes Mozart’s Requiem as “an intensely personal confrontation, frightening and moving in the case of a composer who normally kept his life and experience divorced from his art to an astonishing degree”. This famous recording uses an edition published by Eulenberg in 1972; seeking to come closer to the spirit of the composer himself, it replaces the familiar instrumentation of Franz Xaver Süssmayr, who completed the Requiem after Mozart’s death.

For the 40th anniversary of this recording we have newly remastered it from original tapes.

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Nikolaus Harnoncourt – Johannes Brahms : Ein Deutsches Requiem (2010)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:04 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RCA Red Seal

Widely respected as a pioneer in the field of early music who employed original instruments in performances of Baroque and Classical music, Nikolaus Harnoncourt is also admired for his insightful interpretations of 19th century music. His 2007 recording with the Vienna Philharmonic of Johannes Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem is characteristic of his handling of the Romantic repertoire, insofar as he clearly knows the best scholarship on performance style, yet neither makes authenticity a fetish nor lets expression suffer through an obsession with period practice. The sound of the orchestra is quite modern and full, and there is no attempt to make the strings play with minimal vibrato or to make the ensemble seem reduced in size or altered in the seating arrangement, unlike some historically informed performances. Furthermore, Harnoncourt’s tempos are conventional, and the pacing is steady and even on the slow and reverent side, so his approach shows that he is far from doctrinaire in his choices and doesn’t always follow a revisionist approach. The singing by the Arnold Schoenberg Choir is quite rich and smoothly blended, and the solos by soprano Genia Kühmeier and baritone Thomas Hampson are warm and expressive. Overall, the sound of the recording is fine, though RCA’s microphone placement seems a little distant and soft-focused, so some of the details in the counterpoint seem hazy.

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Nikolaus Harnoncourt – Händel/Mozart/Mosel : Timotheus oder die Gewalt der Musik (Timothée ou le Pouvoir de la musique) (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:43:25 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sony Classical

It is immediately evident from the Overture that the orchestral sound is going to be rich and ponderous, and, although Harnoncourt works wonders in varying the dynamics and getting the rhythms to dance…the effect is more suggestive of those gigantic mid-Victorian Handel events in the Crystal Palace than anything that Mozart, let alone Handel, could have imagined. – The Observer

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Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Nikolaus Harnoncourt – Schubert Edition: Symphonies, Late Masses, Alfonso & Estrella (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 08:32:59 minutes | 4,92 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Recorded live at the Philharmonie Berlin:
Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4 : 23-25 October 2003
Symphony No. 1 · Mass No. 6 : 22-24 April 2004
Symphonies Nos. 6 & 7 : 02-05 December 2004
Symphony No. 2 · Mass No. 5 : 14-16 April 2005
Alfonso und Estrella : 08-09 October 2005
Symphonies Nos. 5 & 8 : 22-24 March 2006

Nikolaus Harnoncourt once said, “Schubert is the composer who is closest to my heart” – and in this edition, Harnoncourt and the Berliner Philharmoniker present a brilliant and multifaceted portrait of the composer. It of course includes Schubert’s symphonies – from the too little-known early works to the “Unfinished” and the “Great” C major Symphony. With Schubert’s final two masses, central works of Romantic sacred music are also represented, plus there is a first-class discovery with the opera Alfonso und Estrella.

Harnoncourt’s case for the work is so convincing not least because of the superb cast of singers which includes Kurt Streit, Dorothea Röschmann and Christian Gerhaher. But what lies at the musical centre of this edition is the collaboration of orchestra and conductor. This Schubert is colourful and dramatic – and represents a unique synthesis in which the famous sound of the Berliner Philharmoniker is as evident as Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s familiarity with the transparency and sound speech of historical performance practice.

The performances, recorded between 2003 and 2006, are contained on eight CDs, plus there is a Blu-ray disc that presents all of the recordings in uncompressed 24-bit audio. The high quality of the recordings is matched by the standard of the product features, with an extensive booklet, a hardback cover, and a video interview especially produced for this edition in which Nikolaus Harnoncourt talks about his special connection to Schubert.
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