Abstract of Commemorative lecture
From Marionettes to the Great Orchestras
I was so lucky to grow up in an extremely musical family. My father was almost a musician - my doing and my thinking is formed by this model in a pro and anti way: never to give up - and take nothing for granted; I had to question everything. My way of thinking was then (1942/43) greatly influenced by the books of Egon Fridell.
As a child I was interested in many things. My greatest experience was to make Sculptures out of wood and Marionettes to play them in public. This gave me a lot experience to work with other persons and to find out how to move an audience.
A great musical experience changed my life while I was sick: I heard the VII Symphony of Beethoven in the radio and decided to become a musician.
The time as a student in Vienna 1948 to 1952 brought rich experiences in discussions about music making and in studying old music and the special sounds of ancient instruments. In this analytic thinking I found my "theory of perfection", which later turned out to be a general theory of life.
You can't have beauty and security.
As an additional to all those problems you also have to regard the listener as a person of our time, with the experience of our time! So, the projection of old music is not only a technical but even more a philosophical problem, if you want to transmit the message of the music.
In 1953 we founded the Concentus Musicus - From 1952 on I earned our life as orchestra-musician. The work with C.M. was never full time and we didn't want to become "old music specialists".
We collected a unique repertoire for the C.M.; we played many works from the 16th to the 18th century the first time since then. An important step was the instrumentation and performance of Monteverdi's operas. This led me to the music theater as a whole.
A very important part of my professional life was teaching "performance practice" at the "Musikhochschule Mozarteum" in Salzburg. So, I had to prove all my decisions in front of all the students.
In 1986 I gave up to play Cello because I didn't have enough time to practice. Since then I am so lucky to work with the best musicians and I have the privilege to perform the greatest music existing. I am very thankful.
