Harnoncourt, Nikolaus (1929– )

Austrian conductor, cellist, and musicologist. A leading figure in the authenticity movement, he established the Vienna Consentus Musicus in 1953, an ensemble playing early music on period instruments. He has conducted notable recordings of Monteverdi's operas and Bach's choral and orchestral music. Since 1969 his wife, violinist Alice Harnoncourt (1930– ), has led the Concentus Musicus.

He studied in Vienna and played with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra 1952–69. From 1957 the Concentus Musicus gave concerts of baroque music using period instruments, attempting to recreate original performing practice. They recorded Bach's Brandenburg concertos in 1962, gave Handel's Messiah in London, England, in 1966, and recorded Jean-Philippe Rameau's Castor et Pollux and Monteverdi's operas. Harnoncourt's own editions of Monteverdi are a valuable alternative to the free realizations of Raymond Leppard, and his performances of the Bach solo cello suites are in contrast to the subjective approach of Pablo Casals and Mstislav Rostropovich. He conducted Così fan tutte for the Netherlands Opera in 1989, and the Beethoven symphony series with the Philharmonia, London, in 1994 (his debut with a British symphony orchestra). He won Germany's prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2002.