Alice Harnoncourt

Alice Harnoncourt ( born September 26, 1930 in Vienna; born Hoffelner ) is an Austrian violinist and one of the pioneers of historical performance practice.

Life and work

While her music studies (piano and violin) she met Nikolaus Harnoncourt. The classes in performance practice with Professor Josef Mertin (1904-1998) made ​​them both aware of a historical performance practice in early music.

After several years of making music and experimenting on historical instruments in private she founded in 1953 with her husband and some other musicians the Concentus Musicus Wien. With this ensemble, it is connected to this day and has (until 1985 ) where numerous concerts as concertmaster and made ​​recordings. By 1968, she played a violin from 1658 by Jakob Stainer ( just the violin shown there, but with screw instead of the lion capitulum ), since an instrument of Absamer Master of 1665th It also plays treble viol (the smallest form of the viola da gamba ), Viola, viola d' amore and violino piccolo.