Rene Clemencic

One commentator has characterized René Clemencic’s approach to musical performance as “lively authenticity.” Born in Vienna, the recorder player, composer, teacher, and conductor has pursued this ideal across an unusually broad spectrum of musical activity. After studying recorder and keyboard, he received a Ph.D. from Vienna University in 1956 and now plays numerous early flutes, recorders, and additional woodwind instruments. In 1958 he established Musica Antiqua in Vienna, then, a decade later, formed the Clemencic Consort; both ensembles were created in a city then regarded as the international center of historical performance practice. Clemencic also teaches, holding membership in the Accademia Filharmonica Romana and offering regular instruction at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena. He has assembled an extensive private collection of period instruments. His own compositions mirror these interests, encompassing works for recorder and oratorios set in Greek and Hebrew. The range of projects he has undertaken is both wide and numerous. At one extreme stand his experimental pieces; at the other, the Clemencic Consort has revived major high-medieval repertories, including the Play of Daniel, the Cantigas de Santa Maria, and a vivid staging of the Roman de Fauvel. The ensemble often incorporates improvisation, producing a richly sonorous effect most evident in the Spanish-Moorish coloring Clemencic brings to troubadour texts. He has also documented the early Netherlandish Renaissance represented by Dufay, Ockeghem, and Obrecht, together with many courtly and popular dance forms of the period. In addition, Clemencic has revived seldom-heard early operas, mounting fully staged productions of works by Peri, Draghi, Fux, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Emperor Leopold I.