Giovanni Antonini

Die Schöpfung

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Haydn: Die Schöpfung
 Il Giardino Armonico, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Giovanni Antonini
Outhere/Alpha 567. 2CDs. 72’52 +27’26

The Joseph Haydn Foundation’s Haydn 2032 project plans to produce and finance the recording of all 107 of Haydn’s symphonies in the lead-up to the 300th anniversary of Haydn’s birth. These recordings are usually with Il Giardino Armonico and the Basel Chamber Orchestra under Giovanni Antonini, but this recording of The Creation, which sidesteps the symphony series, pairs the period instruments of Il Giardino Armonico with the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks. Although I have some reservations, it is a powerful and revealing account of Hadyn’s extraordinary work, a homage to the Handel oratorios that he experienced in London.

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What’s next Vivaldi?

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

What’s next Vivaldi?
Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin),
Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini
Outhere/Alpha ALPHA624. 70’56

If you manage to get past the unremitting frenzy of the opening Vivaldi La Tempesta di Mare Concerto there is a chance that you might be able to appreciate the rest of this extraordinary recording. Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja has been described as an “irresistible force of nature: passionate, challenging and totally original in her approach”, in the citation for her 2014 Royal Philharmonic Society award as Instrumentalist of the year). When combined with the energy of Il Giardino Armonico the result is potent.

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Vivaldi: Concerti per Flauto

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Vivaldi: Concerti per Flauto
Giovanni Antonini, Il giardino armonico
Outhere/Alpha 364. 59’45

Vivaldi: Concerti per flauto

Concerto in do maggiore per flautino, RV 444
Concerto in fa maggiore per flauto, RV 433 La Tempesta di Mare
Concerto in do maggiore per flautino, RV 443
Nisi Dominus per chalumeau, RV 608 Cum dederit
Concerto in do minore per flauto,  RV 441
Concerto in la minore per flautino,  RV 445
Concerto in fa maggiore per flauto, RV 442 Tutti gl’istromenti sordini

Giovanni Antonini is both the recorder soloist and the director of his own group, Il giardino armonico. With many Vivaldi recordings under their belt, this CD selects six Concertos for recorder and contrasts those with an arrangement of a movement from the Nisi Dominus for chalumeau, a forerunner of the clarinet. Continue reading →

La Morte Della Ragione

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

La Morte Della Ragione ‘The Death of Reason’
Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini
Outhere Music. ALPHA 450. CD Book. 73’07

La Morte della Ragione (The Death of Reason) (CD + Book) | Alpha ALPHA450

La Morte della Ragione (The Death of Reason) is the sort of recording that may require you to put on a seat belt before listening. Under the banner of Petrarch’s comment that “Senses reign, and Reason is dead” Il Giardino Armonico take us on a whistlestop tour through a sizeable chunk of early music history. The choice of descriptor is deliberate, as it is also very obviously a showcase for the virtuoso recorder playing of director Giovanni Antonini, which dominates much of the programme and comes vey close to be too clever by half.

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La Morte della Ragione

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

La Morte della Ragione
Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini
Outhere Music: Alpha ALPHA450. 73’07

La Morte della Ragione (The Death of Reason) is a concept album (CD and a 98-page illustrated book) based around Petrarch’s comment that The senses reign, and Reason now is dead’. It is also a clearly intended as a showcase for the virtuoso recorder playing of Giovanni Antonini, founder of Il Giardino Armonico. After an opening recorder flourish we hear the anonymous 16th-century pavane, La Morte della Ragione. This is seen as a reference to to Erasmus‘s In Praise of Folly, and his suggestion of two forms of madness – a sweet illusion of the spirit and the opposite, ‘one that the vengeful Furies conjure up from hell.

A wide-ranging set of scenarios are offered, ranging in date from John Dunstable (1390-c1453), via the likes of Alexander Agricola (1446-c1506), to Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654), whose Galliard Battaglia concludes the CD. a battle piece involving a great many diminutions or ‘divisions’, a common technique of improvisation in the Renaissance… This grand instrumental musical fresco of time and space is a kind of self-portrait of Giovanni Antonini and his longstanding musical colleagues. To accompany this disc, a richly-illustrated booklet presents a free-ranging iconographical tour combining pictures and contemporary photos.

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