Live and read music! Our musical heritage needs more than maintenance, it demands a dialogue with our past, our future and ourselves. A passionate manifesto.

Beethoven and Schubert, Verdi and Johann Strauß, Schumann and Dvořak, Brahms and Bruckner – these are only some of the protagonists of this book in which Nicolaus Harnoncourt deals with the most important works of "the century of romanticism“. The conductor also describes his life-long search for the key to imparting music of this era to the audiences of today, a task that is often being hindered by traditions or changing fashions in performing. In his unrivalled style, with passion and a strong conviction, Nicolaus Harnoncourt outlines how we must never refrain from reading our musical heritage from scratch. Moreover, he shares gloomy memories of his youth under the Nazi regime and fascinating insights into the musical life of the Vienna of his era. All of his statements, be they on music, their cultural significance or his own identity as an interpreter of music, reflect his approach to life itself: that music is not to be regarded as a mere heritage of the past, but also, and particularly, as a living reminder of our right to a humane future.

What do I live for? What gives meaning to my life? It is a fundamental need of human beings to find their individual meaning in life. This holds particularly true for times of crisis. Meaning, however, means something different to every one of us, and it can also change in the course of life. The search for meaning is thus a very personal issue, and each answer is unique. Alfred Längle explains the basic elements that help us to find our meaning in life. Step by step he guides the reader on his or her individual way. The book features many practical examples, instructions and exercises, and the texts invite the reader to reflect on his or her personal life. It is a practical guide and an easy-to-read introduction to the basic concepts of logotherapy and existential analysis.

Der Klassiker bereits in der 19. Auflage!

Geobiological influences on the human body. The book presents the results of the authors fact-research of more than 3000 home- and workingplace-analizes. Deeper causations concerning insomnia and illness could be found by uncovering geophatic disruptions.

This portrait of an ensemble of great stylistic influence traces its history from its pioneering days to the present.

Nowadays this is all taken for granted. The classical music market is populated by whole droves of ensembles producing "original" sound, young musicians demonstrate their mastery on period instruments, and the term "Klangrede" [music as speech] has long become everyday usage. In 1953, when the cellist Nikolaus Harnoncourt and his wife Alice, a violinist, began a private artistic experiment together with a handful of interested colleagues, Early Music was uncharted territory. For four years, Harnoncourt and his friends rehearsed in their living-room, researching musical material and instruments, techniques and sounds until they were ready to venture into public performance. Insatiable curiosity, unseen assiduity and inexhaustible devotion to an idea whose success was unforeseeable characterised the early days, during which the Concentus Musicus of Vienna developed into an ensemble which had a determining influence on period style. This book is intended to bring to life fifty years of adventure, during which a conspiracy of highly specialised musicians set new standards with each stage of their development, making interpretative history. Milan Turković, a member of Concentus, and Monika Mertl, Harnoncourt's biographer, examine all these various events in a balanced view from both inside and out. A CD with commentary by Nikolaus Harnoncourt accompanies the text.

On the occasion of Albert Drach\\\'s 100th birthday – a vivid personal portrait of the great unorthodox thinker of Austrian literature.

When the writer and lawyer Albert Drach (1902-1995) was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize of the German Academy for Language and Letters in 1988, there was great astonishment even in usually well-informed literary circles. Albert Drach – who? A man who had caused a sensation in the 60s and 70s with novels such as "Das große Protokoll gegen Zwetschkenbaum" [The Massive File on Zwetschkenbaum, trans. Harvey I. Dunkle] and "Untersuchung an Mädeln", who was mistakenly hailed as the new Herzmanovsky-Orlando and finally forgotten again. But the Drach renaissance initiated by the Büchner Prize brought the decisive turning point. A new generation of readers and critics discovered in Drach (now aged 86) – whom the Times Literary Supplemement had counted in the same breath as Elias Canetti as being amongst the "most important avant-gardists in the German language" – one of the most original and radical writers after 1945. In 1988, Eva Schobel began her series of conversations with the author. She encountered a still raging but wise man who judged the Austria of the Second Republic, contemporary literature, and also his own life and work, with provocative severity.

Notes show us a direction: in the world – in music – in the music industry

Every note, whether produced by an instrument, the vocal cords or something else, holds many harmonics. They show us a direction, define the tone color and give the acoustic signal a sense of poetry. Not only notes get their own character and value this way. An encounter between people, every experience, every being also becomes a special imprint through tunes, thoughts and feelings. It’s these vibrations Giden Kremer's book talks about. It’s about musical reflections, about the power and effects of music. We also read about the things that form the everyday life of an artist. What does the inner and outer world of an artist look like, how does he look at his profession, his craft and not the music industry. And last but not least we learn about what happens at a rehearsal or a performance, why the artist chooses a certain cadence for a concert, what moves him during applause, how he copes with the loneliness and how he deals with the downside of success. They are bright and light observations, that invade your subconscious but often they’re, with a dignified irony which colors the event: harmonics!