Name: Ouverture spirituelle • Mozart: Litaniae
Start: 2012-07-29T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2012-07-29T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Salzburger Dom

Organization

Conductor

Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Soprano

Sylvia Schwartz

Mezzo-soprano

Elisabeth von Magnus

Tenor

Jeremy Ovenden

Baritone

Florian Boesch

Chorus master

Erwin Ortner

Salzburger Festspiele

Others

Arnold Schoenberg Chor

Orchestra

Concentus Musicus Vienna

Ouverture spirituelle • Mozart: Litaniae

Salzburg

Austria

Salzburger Dom

The 2012 concert season of the Salzburg Festival began with a new series of sacred music entitled "Ouverture Spiritual". Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), who is the focus of the festival in his native city, returns in this concert with two compositions to the Salzburg Cathedral, the place of their premiere.

The program:

Missa longa in C major, K. 262 - Litaniae de venerabili altaris sacramento, K. 243.

For this concert, the historical tapestries were hung in the church in order to achieve the same acoustics that Mozart found when he performed his masses there.

With the so-called "Missa longa" from 1776, Mozart obviously wanted to demonstrate his contrapuntal virtuosity. This applies even more to the Litany of the Sacrament, K. 243, from the same year, with its rich use of concertante solo instruments and the downright breakneck polyphony of the final fugue. According to Salzburg tradition, it was intended for the forty-hour prayer that began on Palm Sunday.

The Austrian musician Nikolaus Harnoncourt, born in 1929, came from a noble family in Luxembourg and Lorraine. He studied cello and initially worked as a cellist with the Wiener Symphoniker. But historical performance practice interested him more than orchestral service: in 1953 he founded the ensemble "Concentus Musicus Wien" with his wife Alice and worked intensively on early music.

A pioneer of original sound, Harnoncourt showed a stunned audience just how exciting Renaissance and Baroque works can sound. Over the years he expanded his repertoire and devoted himself to classical symphonies at the podium of "modern" orchestras, but also to the Viennese waltz and stage works by Johann Strauss, Richard Wagner,

He taught at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and wrote several fundamental writings on music. In 2012 he was made an officer in the French Legion of Honor and awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society London. In 2014 he received the Echo Klassik for his life's work.

"Maestro Harnoncourt is the favorite star of those who don't really like stars. One believes the phrase about serving at work, on genius. His enthusiasm and joy of discovery delight and inspire" (FAZ 14.7.98)

On December 5, 2015, one day before his 86th birthday, Nikolaus Harnoncourt announced that he was retiring; he passed away on March 5, 2016.

Public

Concert

Approved

Production booklet

Further reading