OBITUARIES

ALICE HARNONCOURT

Baroque violinist Alice Harnoncourt died on 20 July at the age of 91. The wife of Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, she was a pioneer in the early music movement, serving as concertmaster of the ensemble Concentus Musicus Wien, which she co-founded with her husband in 1953.

Born Alice Hoffelner on 26 September 1930 in Vienna, she studied the violin with Ernst Moravec and Gottfried Feist in her home town, then with Jacques Thibaud in Paris and Tibor Varga in London. She and Harnoncourt both studied early music under Josef Mertin in Vienna, and in 1949 founded the Vienna Gamba Quartet with Eduard Melkus and Alfred Altenburger.

Alice and Nikolaus married in Graz in 1953, the year that also saw the founding of Concentus Musicus Wien. Alice remained its principal violinist until 1985, when she relinquished the post to Erich Höbarth.

She continued to play in the ensemble until 2015. As well as performing, she marked up the scores and prepared the material, along with editing a number of editions. She also carried out some of the orchestra’s administrative work. Following her husband’s death in 2016, she managed the Concentus Musicus Wien archives.

In 2011 the couple received a gold medal for ‘services to the state of Vienna’. In 2017 Alice published a book about the founding of Concentus Musicus Wien, containing her husband’s notes on the origin of the ensemble. This was followed by books about the Harnoncourt family (2018) and essays on music (2020).

ALICE WATEN

Australian violin pedagogue Alice Waten has died aged 75. She was known for her prominent teaching roles in Australia and her students took up positions as soloists, orchestra leaders, chamber musicians and teachers worldwide.

Born in 1947, Waten studied with Eberhard Feltz at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin. She went on to the Moscow Conservatoire, where she trained with Valery Klimov and David Oistrakh, and studied chamber music with the Borodin Quartet.

Waten was a founding member of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, where she held principal positions for ten years and toured extensively. She performed on a 1743 violin by Paolo Antonio Testore.

Waten most recently held the position of associate professor at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She also held teaching positions at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM), the Australian Institute of Music, the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, UK. In an interview with The Strad in 2013, on the topic of what she sought in prospective students, she said, ’Talent and aptitude, but also dedication and an open mind.’

MICHAEL CAMERON

US double bassist Michael Cameron has died aged 63. He was principal bassist for both the Sinfonia da Camera and the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra. Fond of unusual instrumentation, Cameron played in the Ciosoni Trio alongside clarinettist Paul Martin Zonn and later with Eric Mandat and flautist Tim Lane.

He gave many world and American premieres for double bass works.

Cameron earned bachelors and masters degrees from Indiana University, where he studied with Murray Grodner, Barry Green and Stuart Sankey. He began his teaching career in 1982 at West Texas State University and moved to Baylor University a year later. In 1986 he joined the faculty of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s School of Music string division. In 1996 Cameron was appointed National Endowment for the Humanities distinguished visiting professor at the State University of New York. He also founded BassScores.com, a website that published works for the double bass, many of which he arranged or edited.

VLADIMÍR KROUPA

The Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra has announced the death of its principal violist Vladimír Kroupa aged 49. Born in 1973, Kroupa studied at the Prague Conservatory with professor Jaroslav Ruis, as well as at the Academy of Performing Arts with professor Lubomír Malý. He worked as a member of the Talich Chamber Orchestra and the Apollon Quartet, and spent two years in the Czech Philharmonic. He became principal viola of the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2003 and had been a member of the Czech Nonet since 2007.

Kroupa was a founding member of the Prague-based, genre-crossing Epoque Quartet in 1999, along with Martin Válek, Vladimír Klánský and Vít Petrášek. ‘A big space in our currently sad hearts will forever belong to him,’ the quartet stated on social media.

BRIAN RATTRAY

Scottish luthier Brian Rattray has died aged 83. The clientele at his workshop, located in Colinton, southwest Edinburgh, included Steven Isserlis, Alexa Butterworth and Leonard Friedman as well as respected traditional players such as Aly Bain and Marie Fielding.

Rattray became a professional violin maker and repairer in 1979. His business in the scenic village of Colinton was close to the Water of Leith. He soon developed a wide customer base covering all areas of music. He proudly recalled having undertaken an emergency repair for Eberhard Weber’s double bass before an Usher Hall concert.

Rattray’s output included modern and Baroque violins (often after Gagliano) and violas. He also made classical guitars, violas da gamba and lutes on various patterns. He left the Colinton business on his retirement in 2006 but continued making the occasional guitar from his new home in Cove, near the Scottish borders.