Beethoven’s music has been part of Rudolf Buchbinder’s life since his childhood. He has played nearly fifty cyclical concerts of all thirty-two piano sonatas, and performed the piano concertos with all major orchestras and conductors, as well as conducting himself. This wealth of experience has found its way into his book, in which Beethoven’s piano works are used as stations on a journey through the composer’s life and oeuvre. Describing his own life in music, Buchbinder the performer brings Beethoven’s world to life, reflected in his personal experiences and revelations – Beethoven’s era, his emotions, passions, triumphs and defeats.

Music brings pleasure: Nikolaus Harnoncourt reflects persuasively and passionately on his metier. His texts, speeches and interviews reveal the vision of a great artist, looking back on his own influence and far beyond into musical history. He addresses subjects such as the urgency of art, Haydn, and “a crocodile called Mozart”, and considers romantic insight and baroque reminiscence. He gazes into the depths of an immoral world and shares anecdotes from the Vienna Music Society. He explains why artists cannot lie, why The Magic Flute remains an eternal mystery, and why great art ultimately arises from doubt.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt devoted himself to the study of early music, the way it is played and the sound of period instruments from an early age. In 1953 he founded the famous Concentus Musicus with his wife Alice and other musicians. This was to provide a forum for his work on period instruments and the historic performance practice of renaissance and baroque music. It was not until four years later that the Concentus Musicus first performed in public. Alice Harnoncourt has brought together the unpublished diary entries and notes of her husband, which recount his explorations on the trail of early musical sounds. It is a fascinating and entertaining journey, during which Harnoncourt had to accomplish much to listen his way towards the original period sound.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s childhood and youth was shaped by hardship and the after-effects of World War II, the parenting codex of the aristocracy to which his family belonged and the love for music. The world was in upheaval, it was a time of great political and societal change. To give his children and grandchildren a greater understanding of this era Harnoncourt wrote down his memories and reflections in a “family book”. How did his family deal with the economic and political shifts? What was life like when everything was no longer what it had been? And what traditions shaped the Harnoncourt family? Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s personal account is a fascinating record of the past.

The unique rationale behind Nikolaus Harnoncourt's practice of music brought him fame across the entire musical world. With his ensemble Concentus Musicus he broke established traditions and opened up new approaches to interpreting old music. This was in part the result of his intensive research into the sound produced by original period instruments, but more significantly came about as a consequence of questioning conventional hearing habits. What exactly is music? What effect does it have? And what were the intentions of its creators? Harnoncourt's writing on performance practices, baroque music and instruments such as the harpsichord reads like eloquent music making. A wondrous journey through the history of music.

Im Jahr 2024 feiert die Musikwelt den 200. Geburtstag Anton Bruckners. Der Katalog zur Sonderausstellung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek zeigt den großen Komponisten als facettenreiche Persönlichkeit im Spannungsfeld gegensätzlicher sozialer Lebensfelder und als musikalischen Neuerer von großer Kühnheit. Bruckners Hauptwerke werden in den Textbeiträgen renommierter Expert*innen ebenso vorgestellt wie seine biografischen Stationen, die die Vielfalt des österreichischen Kulturlebens im 19. Jahrhundert sichtbar machen. Ergänzt werden die Textbeiträge durch einen umfangreichen Bildteil mit zahlreichen Originaldokumenten, vom Taufschein Bruckners über Verträge, Fotografien bis zu Werkskizzen.