Gustav Leonhardt
For almost 50 years, Gustav Leonhardt - harpsichordist, organist and, most recently, conductor - is counted among the most respected specialists in both the theory and practice of early music. Acclaimed for his numerous recordings of music ranging from keyboard masterpieces of the early Baroque to Mozart's sonatas, Leonhardt has played a critical role in bringing period-instrument performance into the mainstream of classical music life.
In addition to his extensive recording activities, Gustav Leonhardt has done much to promote awareness of performance practice issues in the presentation of early music. As professor at the Amsterdam Conservatory since 1954 and as organist at Amsterdam's Nieuwe Kerk, Leonhardt has made the Netherlands a key centre in the period-instrument movement. Indeed, it may be said that Gustav Leonhardt has inspired an entire generation of early music artists, including Bob van Asperen (early keyboards and organ), Barthold Kuijken (transverse flute and recorder), and Anner Bylsma (cello), through his teaching and playing.
His early interest in the organ and harpsichord led Leonhardt to study with Eduard Müller at the Schola Cantorum in Basel. He also studied musicology in Vienna, where he became professor of harpsichord at the Vienna Academy of Music. Leonhardt made his first recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach's works for harpsichord in the early 1950’s. In 1954 he led the Leonhardt Baroque Ensemble with the great English counter-tenor Alfred Deller in a pioneering recording of two Bach cantatas. The Ensemble included his wife Marie Leonhardt and Eduard Melkus (violins), Alice Hoffelner (viola), Nikolaus Harnoncourt (cello), and Michel Piguet (oboe). He was awarded the Erasmus Prize in 1980 and received honorary doctorates from universities in Dallas (1982) and Amsterdam (1983), and also from Harvard University (1991). He published an important study of J.S. Bach's The Art of Fugue and is the editor of the first volume of the Sweelinck Edition (Keyboard Works). In 1967, Leonhardt played the role of Johann Sebastian Bach in Jean-Marie Straub's film about the master musician. Although Leonhardt has performed and conducted a diversity of music from the Baroque and Classical music era periods, he is particularly known for his recordings with Harnoncourt of Bach's cantatas spanning twenty years, from 1971 to 1990.
Program July 10 - Noon Harpsichord Recital - Castelmuzio
12:00
Gustav Leonhardt
Henri Dumont
Allemana gravis (1657)
Louis Couperin, Suite in a minor:
Prelude a l’imitation de Froberger, Allemande,
Courente, Sarabande, Menuel, Piemontaise
Henry Purcell, Suite in D major:
Prelude, Alman, Hornpipe
Anton Forqueray
La Marella, L’Aubonne, La Saincy, La Buisson
Christian Ritter
Allemande on the death of Charles XI of Sweden, 1693
Johann S. Bach
“Wer nur den lieben Gott lasst walten”, BWV 691
“O gott du frommer Gott”, con partite, BWV. 767 (1707?)
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