Gustav Leonhardt
Though participants in the "authentic performance practice" movement might insist otherwise, the search for the old is really a search for the new. This statement certainly captures the spirit that Dutch keyboardist Gustav Leonhardt brought to his early music performances in the 1950s. His style was characterized not by a rigorous observance of rules, but by the intuitive, almost spiritual connection it tried to establish with the music -- a kind of authenticity that sought validation not so much from a rigorously academic accuracy (though Leonhardt is by no means historically careless) as from its having an "authentic" effect on the listener.
Born in Amsterdam in 1928, Leonhardt learned cello and piano before entering the Schola Cantorum in Basel to study organ and harpsichord with Eduard Müller. After graduating in 1950, he undertook a year of musicological studies before accepting a position at the Vienna Academy. Shortly thereafter, he returned to his home town, where he assumed a position at the Amsterdam Conservatory that he would keep for decades thereafter.
His first public performance took place in 1950, when he performed J.S. Bach's The Art of the Fugue for a Viennese audience. This marked the beginning of a legendary and influential career that would take him to performance venues all over the world, setting stylistic and interpretive standards for keyboard music dating from the early 1500s to the late 1700s. His treatment of the works of Couperin, Froberger, and Frescobaldi were pivotal in affecting a shift in Baroque performance practice from the motoric to the malleable.
Beginning in the 1950s, he also established the Leonhardt Consort, a group applying his same performance ideals to chamber works; during his career he also demonstrated great skill in conducting early choral and operatic works. Along the way, he tutored an entire generation of the most vibrant and stylistically varied early music figures, including Christopher Hogwood, Pierre Hantaï, and Ton Koopman.
When Leonhardt spoke of "correct" style, certain parameters were clear, while others left much to be read between the lines. The use of the proper instrument, for example, was crucial to Leonhardt: one should not play a piece from a particular country and a particular time on an instrument from a different region and century (and of course it goes without saying what problems he might have had with playing 18th century music on a 20th century Steinway). His discussion of style, however, was quite flexible -- or at least elusive: "I cannot say it's a secret, but it's almost impossible to describe in words....Essentially, it must be based on a dynamic wish." Though he did consult primary sources to justify his sound, which fell somewhere between the rubato sound of Landowska and the robotic sound of her immediate successors, he insisted that the truest "rules" about the music he played were to be discovered through the playing itself.
© TiVo
Artistas similares
-
Bach: Sacred Cantatas, BWV 61-78
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Gustav Leonhardt
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics International el 30 sept. 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Frescobaldi - Il primo libro di Capricci
Música de cámara - Editado por Deutsche Harmonia Mundi el 26 mar. 2010
Discoteca Ideal Qobuz16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Big Gustav Leonhardt Box The Bach Guild Recordings 1952-1955
Clásica - Editado por eOne Music el 29 may. 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Concertos for 2, 3 & 4 Harpsichords, BWV 1060 - 1065
Gustav Leonhardt, Leonhardt Consort
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics el 28 ene. 2022
Discoteca Ideal Qobuz16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach: Matthäus-Passion BWV 244
Música vocal sacra - Editado por Deutsche Harmonia Mundi el 2 ene. 1990
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Sacred Cantatas, BWV 1 - 14 & 16 - 19
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Gustav Leonhardt
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics International el 30 sept. 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gustav Leonhardt Plays Bach
Clásica - Editado por Deutsche Harmonia Mundi el 7 may. 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Armand-Louis, François & Louis Couperin: Pièces de clavecin
Clásica - Editado por Decca Music Group Ltd. el 1 ene. 1988
Discoteca Ideal Qobuz16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Elizabethan Organ Music
Clásica - Editado por Paradizo el 24 jun. 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Johann Sebastian Bach : Sacred Cantatas Vol.6 : BWV 100-117
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Gustav Leonhardt
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics International el 30 sept. 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Sacred Cantatas, BWV 20 - 36
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Gustav Leonhardt
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics International el 30 sept. 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Harpsichord Concertos, BWV 1053 - 1058
Gustav Leonhardt, Leonhardt Consort
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics el 14 ene. 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Antoine & Jean-Baptiste Forqueray: Pièces de clavecin
Música de cámara - Editado por Les Indispensables de Diapason el 30 ene. 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Sacred Cantatas, BWV 163 - 182
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Gustav Leonhardt
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics International el 30 sept. 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lully:Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme/Campra:L'Europe Gal
Clásica - Editado por Deutsche Harmonia Mundi el 29 mar. 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: Recorder Sonatas
Frans Brüggen, Anner Bylsma, Gustav Leonhardt
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics el 7 feb. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Corelli: La follia
Clásica - Editado por Sony Classical el 10 feb. 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach: Harpsichord Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, BWV 1052 - C.P.E. Bach: Harpsichord Concerto in D Minor, Wq. 23
Clásica - Editado por Sony Classical el 20 ago. 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Sacred Cantatas, BWV 150 - 153
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Gustav Leonhardt
Música coral (para coro) - Editado por Warner Classics International el 1 ene. 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
L'Art de la Fugue
Clásica - Editado por Vanguard el 28 feb. 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Telemann: Recorder Sonatas & Fantasias
Frans Brüggen, Anner Bylsma, Gustav Leonhardt
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics International el 1 jul. 1993
Discoteca Ideal Qobuz16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo