Sir Joh Eliot Gardiner

Following studies in conducting in London and Paris – in the French capital his teacher was Nadia Boulanger – Gardiner pursued two parallel paths: on the one hand, he appeared with established institutions that included the opera houses in London, Zurich and Lyons and with international orchestras such as the NDR Sinfonieorchester in Hamburg and the Wiener Philharmoniker; but at the same time he also worked with his own early music ensembles, which he himself had founded and helped to mould. The Monteverdi Choir that was at the very heart of these ensembles had been founded in 1964, followed in 1978 by the English Baroque Soloists with whom he made many pioneering recordings of music ranging from the early Baroque to Mozart and Haydn. Recordings which have lost none of their brilliance in the course of the intervening decades. They retain their value not least through the outstanding soloists that Gardiner was able to engage, many of them still at the start of their illustrious careers. Gardiner has always been a complete musician, and so it was inevitable that he would want to perform the music of the nineteenth century on instruments from that period with the result that in 1989 he founded the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, a name that points to the tradition established by the conductor François-Antoine Habeneck. Gardiner’s recordings of Bach, Beethoven, and Schumann not least, in the present edition are milestones in the history of interpretation. His recordings will continue to endure: in their energy-laden delight in making music, in their spiritualized expressivity and in their gripping vitality.

Tracklist:

THE RECORDINGS

CD1-21

BACH Christmas Oratorio; St. Matthew Passion; St. John Passion; Mass in B minor; Magnificat; Cantatas

CD22-36

BEETHOVEN Complete Symphonies; Piano Concertos; Fantasy Op. 80; Violin Concerto, Missa solemnis;

Concert Aria “Ah perfido”; Meeres Stille und Glückliche Fahrt; Mass in C major;

Leonore oder Der Triumph der ehelichen Liebe

CD37-38

BRITTEN War Requiem, Spring Symphony; Hymn to St. Cecilia; 5 Flower Songs

CD39

BRUCKNER Mass No. 1; Five Motets

CD40

BUXTEHUDE Membra Jesu Nostri Schütz O bone Jesu

CD41

CHABRIER Suite pastorale; Habanera; España; Larghetto for Horn and Orchestra; Overture to Gwendoline; Prélude pastoral; Marche française (Joyeuse marche); Fête polonaise

CD42

DVOŘÁK Symphonic Variations; Czech Suite

BRAHMS Hungarian Dances

CD43

ELGAR Enigma Variations; In the South; Introduction and Allegro; Sospiri

CD44-47

HANDEL Acis and Galatea; Hercules

CD48-51

HAYDN The Creation; The Seasons

CD52

HOLST Holst The Planets

GRAINGER The Warriors

CD53

LEHÁR Die lustige Witwe

CD54

MAHLER Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen; Rückert Lieder

ZEMLINSKY Maeterlinck Lieder

CD55

MENDELSSOHN Symphonies Nos. 4 (original + revised version) & 5

CD56-62

MONTEVERDI Vespro della Beata Vergine; L’Orfeo; L’incoronazione di Poppea

CD63-89

MOZART Piano Concertos; Idomeneo; Die Entführung aus dem Serail;

Le nozze di Figaro; Don Giovanni; Così fan tutte; La clemenza di Tito; Die Zauberflöte

CD90-91

PURCELL The Fairy Queen

CD92

RACHMANINOFF Symphonic Dances

JANÁČEK Taras Bulba

CD93

SCHUBERT Gesang der Geister über den Wassern; Symphony No. 9

CD94

SCHÜTZ Motets and Songs; Musikalische Exequien

CD95-99

SCHUMANN Complete Symphonies; Requiem für Mignon; Nachtlied; Das Paradies und die Peri

CD100-102

STRAVINSKY Symphony of Psalms; The Rake’s Progress

1. BOULANGER Psalms; Vieille prière bouddhique

CD103 

WEILL Die sieben Todsünden; Songs

CD104 

VIENNA SOIRÉE Works by Suppè, Ziehrer, Lehár, Lanner, Heuberger