Isolde Ahlgrimm
Isolde Ahlgrimm (born July 31, 1914 in Vienna ; † October 11, 1995 there ) was an Austrian harpsichordist.
Life
Isolde Ahlgrimm was a piano graduate and later professor for harpsichord at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna . She gave master classes in the USA and was a regular participant at the Bach festivals in Leipzig . Peter Watchorn is one of her students .
From 1935 she devoted herself to historical performance practice and developed a counter-philosophy to her contemporary Wanda Landowska , which promoted the technical further development of the harpsichord.
Ahlgrimm refused harpsichords in peg design with pedal registration for the reproduction of works from the 17th and 18th centuries and had the Ammer company build an instrument based on the historical design as early as the 1930s. For playing organ music and Johann Sebastian Bach's Art of Fugue additionally came pedal harpsichord used. Ahlgrimm played all works by heart even in old age.
Richard Strauss was on friendly terms with her, entrusting her with the harpsichord part in his opera Capriccio at the first performance in Vienna , then encouraged her to perform the dance movements in her concerts and composed a concert ending for her sole use (the work has since been published by Schott-Mainz ) .
From 1937, she and her husband Erich Fiala (1911–1978), a collector of Amati violins, gave concerts on original instruments. These concerts for connoisseurs and enthusiasts continued until 1957. Both the use of historical instruments and historical performance practice were groundbreaking for a new understanding of baroque music. In this regard, Isolde Ahlgrimm can be considered the pioneer of Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Eduard Melkus , with whom she recorded the sonatas for viola da gamba and obbligato harpsichord as well as JS Bach's musical sacrifice around 1955 .
In 1937 she began using a Rosenberger Viennese fortepiano in her concerts. In the Mozart year 1956 she performed all of Mozart's piano works on a historical fortepiano as part of her concert series.
From 1954 Philips began recording all of JSBach's works for harpsichord. In 2016 Philips' successor company, Universal, started a new edition of the historical recordings.
Further recordings were:
All suites by GF Handel , variations ( Poglietti , Frescobaldi , C. Ph. E. Bach , Couperin etc.), harpsichord music from Vienna ( Fux , Froberger , Poglietti), harpsichord concerts by JS Bach with the Amati orchestra under Erich Fiala and concerts for 2, 3 and 4 harpsichords (with Hans Pischner , Zuzana Růžičková and Robert Veyron-Lacroix ; Staatskapelle Dresden under Kurt Redel ).
Isolde Ahlgrimm was buried at the Vienna Central Cemetery (Gr. 87B, R. 22, No. 47).
Fonts
- Beethoven Almanac 1970 . Munich 1970.
- On today's performance practice of baroque music Vienna 1979.
- Ornaments of music for keyboard instruments, Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt Graz, 2005, edited by Helga Scholz
literature
- Alois Forer, Rudolf Scholz: Organa Austriaca . 1976, ISBN 3-7003-0132-4 .
- Regula Winkelman and Peter Watchorn: The harpsichordist Isolde Ahlgrimm (1914–1995). Böhlau Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-205-79679-4
Web links
- Short biography on the Bach Cantas website (in English)
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ahlgrimm, Isolde |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian harpsichordist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 31, 1914 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vienna |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 11, 1995 |
| Place of death | Vienna |