Harmonie

Harmonie is a German word that, in the context of the history of music, designates an ensemble of wind instruments (usually about five to eight players) employed by an aristocratic patron, particularly during the Classical era of the 18th century.

Horace Fitzpatrick writes (reference below): From about 1756 onward the Emperor [in Vienna] and the Austrian nobles kept house bands called Harmonien, usually made of pairs of oboes, horns, bassoons, and after about 1770, clarinets.

According to Haydn biographer Rosemary Hughes: "Feldharmonie"[1] or simply "Harmonie," was the wind band, maintained by most noblemen even when they could not afford a larger orchestra, for performing at hunting parties and other outdoor entertainments.

Roger Hellyer, writing in the Grove Dictionary[2] notes that while the Harmonie generally had an aristocratic patron, the same music was sometimes also played by street musicians.

When members of the Harmonie participated in performances with such orchestras, it became possible for the composer to enrich the musical texture with wind parts, without increasing the payroll cost of his patron.

Of this practice, Fitzpatrick writes, "It was [Franz II's Harmonie] who made up the wind section in Beethoven's orchestra of 1800 [at the premiere of the composer's First Symphony]."

The Harmonie continued as a lively musical tradition until the Napoleonic Wars forced aristocrats to retrench financially, cutting down on the number of musicians they employed.

[11] Hellyer calls it "a curiously sombre and powerful work which often conveys a mood of dramatic intensity totally alien to the informal background music normally associated with the serenade type.

"[12] At the banquet in the finale of Don Giovanni, Mozart has a "Harmonie" perform parts from Una cosa rara by Vicente Martín y Soler, I due litiganti by Giuseppe Sarti and the aria "Non più andrai" from his own The Marriage of Figaro.