Eduard melkus biography

Following the Second World War, Melkus dedicated himself to the exploration of historically informed performance. He was a member of the Vienna viola da gamba quartet, the select group of musicians that included Alice and Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt who started the Early Music movement.

He performed and recorded more than works from the mid 17th through the late 18th centuries with his ensemble Capella Academica Wien, or the French harpsichordist Huguette Dreyfus, and in his time, tapped a worldwide audience.

Eduard Melkus (born 1 September in Baden bei Wien) is an.

From , Melkus was a professor of violin, baroque violin, viola, and historical performance practice at the Vienna Academy of Music. In he became head of the Institute for Viennese Sound Style. As a violin soloist, Eduard Melkus is a precursor to the current wave in the revival of historically informed baroque period performance. For all these recordings, Melkus played an unaltered violin by Aegidius Kloz, made in Mittenwald ca.

Melkus' later recordings of such works as Bach's Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord were made on a retrofitted violin by Nicolo Amati of Cremona in ; though a richer-sounding and historically more important instrument, Melkus always sounded more daring and comfortable on the Kloz. Moreover, as Melkus always pointed out in liner notes, the Kloz is rare in that it survived with its original neck, bass-bar, and fingerboard, rather than requiring somewhat speculative retrofitting--which cannot be said for the Amati, and no Amatis survive in original state for restorer consultation.

Melkus owns three other instruments by Nicolo Amati, comprising a complete string quartet by that unequalled maker. In these ways, he departed from those better-known colleagues in Vienna with whom he began, the Harnoncourts. Oddly, he never adapted to methods that have been shown by scholars as more appropriate historically, even more recently.

His older recordings are generally dismissed and have not been reissued on CD. It is a pity because, despite his less "authentic" sound, the recordings of the period reveal in his playing what is lacking in most players today: an instantly recognizable personal sound and style, and most significantly, an enthusiasm for embellishing music in ways that more contemporary period players seldom attempt, but their 18th-century forbears did without question; in that sense, he is more "historical" than they--and to some listeners, more exciting.

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