Field of study: Performance Practice
Research
Research
The Nikolaus Harnoncourt Zentrum offers the unique opportunity to research and work on the scores of the great Austrian conductor and musician.
His decades-long preoccupation with the sources, the precision with which he handled the original compositions and the compilation of scores/orchestral material for performances/additions to the scores provide plenty of scope for research and are an incentive to delve deeper into the genesis of the compositions.
His way of working is remarkable and universal: as a musician working on the sources, as a researcher constantly in dialogue with editors, as a pedagogue always at the cutting edge, and as an inquisitive person never satisfied with a simple answer but always in search of more information and knowledge, which then immediately flows back into interpretation, teaching and research.
The accuracy of Harnoncourt’s annotations from a musical point of view gives rise to many different research approaches that can cover very broad areas of interest.
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Research on interpretation
Comparison of different recordings of a work, where the changes in the interpretation document the development of the conductor/musician and the scores can be used to check how this development has taken place or to what extent the conductor has observed and realised his own indications in his interpretation. It is possible that non-musical annotations (cast list, rehearsal dates, correspondence with directors/artistic directors/interpreters) or the interpretation (documented recordings – correlated with the annotations verified using quantitative methods) will allow conclusions to be drawn about the use of specific scores for specific recordings.
Derivation of quantitative evaluation methods for AI-driven interpretation research or preliminary AI work for later research.
Editions
The results of Harnoncourt’s research inevitably raise questions about the authenticity of the works and the ‘Urtext’ editions, some of which have been rethought and expanded.Analysis through synthesis
Music automation and generation, technical findings on technical aspects of instrumental playing at a very high level (possible cooperation with Vienna Symphonic Library, MDW Institute for Viennese Sound Style)
Pedagogical conclusions on playing techniques (Concentus musicus)
Networking with instrumental teaching/pedagogy or institutions of historical performance practice, where playing techniques and articulation can be researched in the context of performances/interpretations.
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15.11.2024
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15.11.2024
Dr. Emil Bernhardt: Emphatic Articulation: ‘Klangrede’ as a performative concept in Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s orchestral interpretation
Studia Musicologica Norvegica
p.123-142, 15 November 2024
Abstract
In a 2004 interpretation of Schubert’s Symphony in B minor, Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Berlin Philharmonic foreground a certain awareness regarding articulation. This awareness brings with it a broadening of the concept of articulation that transcends choices regarding accents, endings, slurs, and so on. Harnoncourt’s articulation, that is, incorporates what he refers to as the act of ‘pronouncing’ (as in quite deliberately enunciating) the musical material. This practice – what the author of this article labels ‘emphatic articulation’ – can also be framed as an attempt to clarify the relationship between music and language, an issue of importance to Harnoncourt that is most explicitly represented by his notion of Klangrede. The concept of meaning proves crucial to understanding Klangrede, and this article seeks to shed light on this relation in the context of musical performance. According to the 18th-century German philosopher Herder, the human ability to deal with meaning is based on a reflective awareness that only comes into being through the act of speaking itself. With the support of Herder’s ‘reflective awareness’, this article plumbs the depths of the emphatically articulated musical performance as a timebound act, and asks whether it might be understood in a similar way.
01.11.2024
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01.02.2031
Research Infrastructures in Austria
The NHZ is part of the research infrastructure database of the Ministry of Education, Science and Research.
The research infrastructure database provides an information platform on research infrastructures in science, research and industry. The database can be used to find or offer collaborative research infrastructures (open for Collaboration).
20.08.2024
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23.08.2024
International Bruckner Congress 2024
From 20-23 August 2024, the International Bruckner Congress took place at Sankt Florian Abbey in cooperation with the Bruckner Society of America.
The first research results of musicologists Lars Laubhold and Markus Neuwirth on Harnoncourt’s Bruckner, based on the 7th Symphony, were presented there.
02.01.2017
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23.01.2019
Mitchell, Margeret Kehl: The revival of the Baroque Violin (2019)
Library of the University of Amsterdam – in English language
This thesis provides information about the baroque violin pioneers in the 20th century such as Alice Harnoncourt, Marie Leonhardt, Eduard Melkus, Rudolf Baumgartner, Lars Frydén and many more.
The revival of the Baroque violin, as part of the early music movement, was based on the idea that music is best expressed by using the instruments and aesthetic ideals from the time period of the music that is to be performed. For violinists playing music before the mid-nineteenth century, this would entail playing on a non-modernized instrument and a pre-Tourte bow. This anti-evolutionary stance was a confrontational position to take, and it was an enormous undertaking for the Baroque violin pioneers to revive equipment which had been so successfully “improved” through the centuries. Archival research and interviews with ten of the oldest living Baroque violinists have challenged the accepted historiography of the movement. Viewing the Baroque violin revival as an “invented tradition” did not undermine the pioneers’ achievements, but provided a new framework in which to view them. Although it is impossible to claim that these violinists were able to reproduce the sounds and musical ideals of an earlier period, their use of historical equipment and their creation of a new musical aesthetic – both strikingly different from the prevailing models – was indeed revolutionary. They brought the Baroque violin back onto the concert stage, codified and disseminated their ideas of style and technique and turned this new approach into a profession. In this rewritten history of the Baroque violin revival, a new narrative is revealed, new connections to nineteenth-century experimentations are made and forgotten figures are reestablished.
01.01.2016
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31.12.2021
Emil Bernhardt: The Sound of History
How could Harnoncourt make performances that were both historically conscious and aesthetically relevant?
This study focuses on the performance practice of the Austrian conductor, Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929–2016). The approach is aesthetical and philosophical rather than biographical and historical. The study aims at discussing and developing concepts (partly taken from Harnoncourt’s own texts, partly from a broader theoretical vocabulary) that may reveal and make visible central aspects of Harnoncourt’s specific interpretation and performance practice. It also seeks to contribute to a more general conceptual development in current research on musical interpretation, especially with regard to orchestral music.
A basic premise of the study is that Harnoncourt’s performance practice has its roots in what has been called the historically informed/oriented performance practice (HIP). The study argues that the historical orientation that characterizes this movement adds a discursive element to the practice of musical interpretation. By ‘discursive element’ I mean partly an occupation with historical knowledge and information (which is usually articulated in academic terms), partly a reflection on how this information may be seen to influence the concrete musical performance. The basic inquiry of the study is directed toward the relationship between historical consciousness and musical success; between conceptual orientation and practical interpretation and between theoretical discourse and aesthetic experience.
26.01.2008
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31.01.2008
Symposium Event Music as Speech
In January 2008, Harnoncourt was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Mozarteum University for the first time for his pioneering and controversial advocacy of the shaping of music from the 17th to the early 19th century. To mark the occasion, the Institute for the History of Music Reception and Interpretation (IMRI) organised a symposium entitled ‘Ereignis Klangrede’ for the first time. Nikolaus Harnoncourt as a conductor and musical thinker; the celebrations were accompanied by the exhibition ‘Speaking in Sound – Nikolaus Harnoncourt’.