Alice Harnoncourt is a violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist. She is noted for her playing of the Baroque violin

Baroque violin

A baroque violin is, in common usage, any violin whose neck, fingerboard, bridge, and tailpiece are of the type used during the baroque period. Such an instrument may be an original built during the baroque and never changed to modern form; or a modern replica built as a baroque violin; or an...

, viol, and other stringed instruments. In 1953 she and her husband Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Nikolaus Harnoncourt is an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the Classical era and earlier. Starting out as a classical cellist, he founded his own period instrument ensemble in the 1950s, and became a pioneer of the Early Music movement...

 founded the Concentus Musicus Wien

Concentus Musicus Wien

Concentus Musicus Wien is a baroque music ensemble founded by Nikolaus and Alice Harnoncourt in 1953. It generated the now well-established movement in performance and recordings to play early music on period instruments....

, initiating the movement to perform early music on period instruments.

Early life and education

Alice Hoffelner was born in 1930 in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

. She studied violin and other stringed instruments as a student of Josef Mertin and became interested in Baroque violin.

Career

In 1953, along with her husband Nikolaus Harnoncourt, she founded the period instrument ensemble Concentus Musicus Wien. She served as its principal violinist until 1985. Their ensemble strongly influenced and changed the performance and recording of early music by contemporary musicians, as it emphasized the use of period instruments.

Until 1968, Harnoncourt performed on a Jakob Stainer violin made in 1658. She switched to an instrument of 1665 vintage, also by a maker from the Absam

Absam

Absam is a municipality in the Innsbruck-Land District, Tyrol situated at an altitude of 632 m, has an area of 52 km² and 6700 inhabitants as January 2011.-Geography:...

 region of Austria. In addition to baroque violin, she has performed on the pardessus de viole (the smallest form of the viola da gamba), viola

Viola

The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...

and viola d'amore

Viola d'amore

The viola d'amore is a 7- or 6-stringed musical instrument with sympathetic strings used chiefly in the baroque period. It is played under the chin in the same manner as the violin.- Structure and sound :...

.

Marriage and family

Alice Hoffelner and Nikolaus Harnoncourt married before 1953. They have raised a daughter and three sons. Their two surviving sons are Philipp and Franz. Their third son Eberhard, a violin maker, died in 1990 in an automobile accident.