I'm so glad I saw him live, in Vienna, some time in the 1990s.
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One funny story about Harnoncourt's early career comes from a 2003 NYT article by James R. Oestreich:
'As a cello student at the Vienna Conservatory in 1950, Mr. Harnoncourt learned mere hours before that he was to substitute for his teacher in a performance of Richard Strauss's demandingly scored if mercifully brief opera Salome.
''It's a little bit difficult,'' Mr. Harnoncourt animatedly quoted his teacher as saying, clearly reliving his trepidation at the prospect. ''Go one hour earlier and have a look at your score. Karl Böhm is conducting, and he doesn't like strange faces, so I have told him you are my best student and you know the piece by heart.''
Mr. Harnoncourt - you can probably guess - had never seen the score or the cello parts.
''I went there innocent, one hour before,'' he said, ''and I found out that I could not play even the first page. In one hour, absolutely impossible!''
He gamely practiced for a half hour until another cellist approached. ''We are only five cellists,'' Mr. Harnoncourt quoted again. ''It is hopeless. Don't practice. There is one low C. Tune your open C string so that this is clean, and be there, because the whole orchestra will look at you. All the other things you cannot play. It's impossible.''
Mr. Harnoncourt, daunted yet still game, ventured the entire performance. ''What I remember is the funny motions of the conductor,'' he said. ''I never for one second knew the downbeat. The whole one and a half hours was a nightmare. To this day I don't know what happened. But I must have done something correct, because the orchestra invited me again and again after that.'''The "modest" was me, not Google Translator. I think the original Google Translator text was to the effect of "nothing", so I tried to soften the blow, so to speak.Originally posted by gurnemanz View PostComment
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Sadly he's one of the select group of great conductors (Klemperer, Sawallisch, Sinopoli, and one or two more) who threw sickies (or died very shortly before) the nights I had tickets to see themOriginally posted by Mary Chambers View Post
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I was just listening to his recent CD of Beethoven 4 and 5. Shame he decided he was too frail to complete the planned cycle.Comment
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I have been listening to Radio 3 and a concert which is still available there of Concentus Musicus/Harnoncourt. The first work is the Haydn "Mass in Time of War" and the second is Beethoven Symphony No. 5. The Mass was the last concert of Harnoncourt, recorded in July last year in Graz and the Beethoven was his last symphony performance on 10 May, 2015. This was recorded at the Musikverein and when I looked at the dates I realized I was there at that very concert. So, it has been a nostalgic journey for me today listening to his Beethoven 5 and those blaring horns!! I actually found myself smiling through the performance of that work because Harnoncourt found humour in that work which I'd never heard before.
It was an honour to be at his penultimate final concert!! The woman next to me that night said, "we think this will be his last year; he will retire". Little did we all know!!Comment
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Of all the works, of all The Last Testaments....
I can scarcely bear the wait....
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That looks like something that has to be heard, Jayne.
Although "a handpicked solo quartet" in the blurb made me wonder how many recordings of the Missa Solemnis have actually been made with soloists grabbed randomly off the street rather than being handpicked.Comment
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