René Clemencic

René Clemencic, born February 27, 1928 in Vienna, is a composer, harpsichordist, musicologist and Austrian conductor. He was one of the pioneers of the rediscovery of medieval music. Born into a cosmopolitan family with Polish and Hungarian ancestors, René Clemencic is fluent in German, Italian and French. He first learned piano and harpsichord, then the recorder in Nijmegen and Berlin. He studied philosophy, mathematics and ethnology, before devoting himself to music, first in Paris, at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France, then at the University of Vienna, where he obtained a doctorate in philosophy. In 1957, he began a career as a virtuoso clavichord, harpsichord and recorder. He uses, for his concerts, the instruments of his collection, which come from all over the world. He founded, in 1969, a set of early music with variable geometry, the Clemencic Consort, with which he intends to make their notoriety to unknown masterpieces of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and Baroque music, as well as to make them known to the general public. The Clemencic Consort uses only old instruments or copies of them. René Clemencic immediately imposed himself as a conductor, specializing in the execution of baroque works. He also performs with the Clemencic Consort, contemporary works written for ancient instruments. In the 1970s, he published, with the Clemencic Consort and the viellist René Zosso, a series of recordings of secular music from the Middle Ages, recordings that will revolutionize the previously accepted perception of music of that time. It shows the joyful and festive character, even bawdy, in opposition to the stilted vision in force, which was based mainly on religious music (Rene Clemencic speaks about it, "puritanism" and "Cecilianism" 1). He does not forget the latter, however, and offers a very personal interpretation of the Cantigas de Santa Maria.