Alan Curtis (musician)

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Alan Curtis, 2006

Alan Curtis (born November 17, 1934 in Mason , Michigan , † July 15, 2015 in Florence , Italy ) was an American harpsichordist , musicologist and conductor of baroque operas. In 1977 he founded the orchestra Il complesso barocco , which he directed until the end.

Life

Alan Curtis studied in Amsterdam with Gustav Leonhardt from 1957 to 1959 , with whom he performed several Bach concertos for harpsichords . At the University of Illinois he received his doctorate in 1960 with a dissertation on the organ music by Sweelinck . As a student, he was considered the first modern harpsichordist to adequately represent the works of Louis Couperin and the operas of composers such as Monteverdi and Rameau with historical instruments. Records he released in the 1960s and 1970s contain solo piano music, by Rameau and Bach.

In 1977 he made a successful attempt to revive Handel's opera orchestra in a concert performance of Handel's opera Admeto , including the use of the theorbo , the chitarrone and the chromatic harpsichord . He then worked several times as a conductor at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music .

Curtis was the director of the baroque orchestra Il complesso barocco, which he founded in Amsterdam in 1977 . In 2007 the Complesso Barocco began working continuously with the Theater an der Wien , especially for concert performances . At the Vienna Chamber Opera , the second house of the Theater an der Wien since 2012, the Bach Consort Vienna under the direction of Alan Curtis celebrated a great success in autumn 2013 with the scenic rediscovery of Leonardo Vinci's Semiramide .

Alan Curtis died in Florence on July 15, 2015 at the age of 80.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ensemble Fiorello ( Memento from July 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Il complesso barocco - biography. In: ilcomplessobarocco.com. Il complesso barocco , January 20, 2009, archived from the original on January 20, 2009 ; accessed on July 16, 2015 .
  3. ^ A courageous announcement in the fight against every opera thread , Kurier (Vienna), 25 September 2013.
  4. ^ Norman Lebrecht: Just in: Death of a great baroque leader. In: slippedisc.com. June 15, 2015, accessed June 15, 2015 .