Harnoncourt - RIP
Posted by: Bert Schurink on 06 March 2016
Another great artist has died. It's not a good year so far.
Harnoncourt has changed the way I listen to music. As a kid, I loved Mozarts music. My grandfather had a lot of Mozart recordings and I listened to them a lot. On Dutch radio, on sunday, there was (is?) a program where they compared recordings of the same piece. One afternoon, I must have been 12 or 13, there was a well know Mozart symphony being compared. One of the recordings was starkly different from all of them and for me it was like being hit by a train. All at once, it made sense to me. This was what the music was saying. Mozart was not just nice music to enjoy, it was something far more profound than I ever imagined.
Later on, I understood this was Harnoncourt doing his thing. Opening our ears.
Much, much later in life I was a student. For my birthday I received a lot of vouchers to be spend on music. I went to the record store to browse the cds. I had a great afternoon listening to whatever music, knowing I could buy a whole stack. Living Colours Stain was already picked and then I saw this box:
It was horrendously expensive for a student, but I had my gift vouchers and I could pay it! So I listened. The guy at the desk asked me which disk I would like to hear, and I said 'pick any". It was the third disk, with the 'Unvolledete' symphony. I lost any sense of time and space listening to it. I never cared much for Schubert, except playing his variations for flute and piano. But this was heaven. This was music that went from the deepest despair to the highest high in a few bars.
No one has ever played this symphony like Harnoncourt has. It is what it should sound like, it still is the only recording I know that is not just completely clear and transparent, but also the recording that makes perfect sense of the music. It feels like the score has turned inside out and it shows the breathing, living composer.
I'm listening to it now and I wonder how Sibelius and Mahler are not just standing on the shoulders of Beethoven, but of Schubert as well. This music is so forward looking, it is almost unbelievable the music is not played more often.
Harnoncourt has left us with a great legacy of recordings and great teaching material. Surely one of the greatest musicians has gone.
He has left a wonderful body of legacy which goes on forever to enlighten other people's life.
My heart goes out to his wife Alice.
Just was listening now again to this one. I wouldn't say I completely like what he is doing. But it's raw and bold and different to all other ones who have tried to do this...
