Il Giardino Dell Eden 1980

Mezzo Cecilia Bartoli could easily rest on her laurels as one of today's most charismatic, characterful singers for her lively portrayals of Mozart and Rossini heroines. But it's been particularly exciting to observe her growth as an artist in exploring the exuberant world of baroque opera, with its range of pyrotechnic demands–both vocal and emotional. Bartoli's show-stopping virtuosity in a Vivaldi aria from her Live in Italy recital gave a tantalizing sample of her finesse in that style. For The Vivaldi Album, Bartoli conducted extensive research into the composer's manuscripts.

A beautiful scenic film by Olivier Simonnet. Filmed in high-definition widescreen. Cecilia Bartoli sings virtuoso arias from her Sacrificium album, on location in and around the spectacular baroque palace of Caserta in Southern Italy, just outside of Naples. This unique film shows Cecilia Bartoli in full costume singing a selection of showpiece arias written for the castrato stars of the Neapolitan school. Ravishing locations including the Court Theatre, the stunning Vestibule and the Palace Gardens. Arias include Handel's "Ombra mai fu" and Broschi's "Son qual nave"–previously only available in the deluxe version of the album.

The HAYDN2032 edition celebrates the release of the tenth volume in the complete recording of Haydn’s 107 symphonies. Entitled ‘The Times of Day’, this programme is devoted to Symphonies nos. 6, 7 and 8, whose individual names translate as ‘Morning’, ‘Noon’ and ‘Evening’. Prince Paul Anton Esterházy, who commissioned the work, is said to have wanted to show his guests that his orchestra was of excellent quality and that ‘his’ Haydn was highly inventive. Giovanni Antonini’s orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico, once again rises to the challenge! This triptych following the sun’s course is prolonged into the night by the work of another composer: Mozart’s Serenade in D major, nicknamed Serenata notturna, probably written for a masked ball at Salzburg Town Hall in February 1776. Jérôme Sessini of the Magnum agency, who has won awards for his work on the cartel wars in Mexico and the opioid crisis in the United States, took the photographs featured in this volume.

For its eighth volume, Haydn2032 invites us on a musical journey that takes the Balkan route. Of all the ‘Viennese Classical School’, Joseph Haydn is certainly the composer closest to folk music, first because he spent his early years in the countryside and also because, unlike his colleagues who worked in the urban centres of the Habsburg monarchy, Haydn was in contact with Croats, Roma and Hungarians throughout his life. These influences were omnipresent in his music, to the delight of Prince Nikolaus I Esterházy and his guests, but by some accounts were not to the taste of many music theorists in Germany.

Giovanni Antonini and his ensemble Il Giardino Armonico celebrate the composer who made them famous: Antonio Vivaldi. Their recordings of The Four Seasons and Cecilia Bartoli's famous first Vivaldi recital left an indelible mark on the discography of the Red-haired Priest! Their musical fireworks display continues with a programme of concertos that is bound to provoke strong reactions, since it is the result of a meeting with a musician who is equally adept at shifting boundaries, the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. Together they have devised a programme entitled WHAT'S NEXT VIVALDI?, which interweaves ultra-virtuosic concertos by Vivaldi (Il Grosso Mogul RV 208, La Tempesta di Mare (for violin!) RV 253, and RV 157, 191, 550 among others) with, between each concerto, short pieces written by much more recent composers, Luca Francesconi, Simone Movio, Giacinto Scelsi, Aureliano Cattaneo and Giovanni Sollima, and mostly commissioned by Patricia Kopatchinskaja especially for this programme.

Giovanni Antonini has been recording the complete symphonies of Joseph Haydn with the Alpha label for more than five years. Now the series is enriched by another monument by the Austrian composer: Die Schöpfung (The Creation), recorded in 2019 with the Bavarian Radio Chorus and his own orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico. This great oratorio was inspired by those of Handel, which Haydn heard performed by very large forces during his visits to England. The Creation, composed between September 1796 and April 1798, demanded such a colossal effort of him that he even fell ill just after its first performance; but the work enjoyed immense success. The marriage between the Bavarian chorus, so familiar with this masterpiece, and the period-instrument musicians of Il Giardino Armonico works perfectly, with a vocal trio composed of leading soloists: Anna Lucia Richter, Maximilian Schmitt and Florian Boesch.

This ninth volume of the Haydn2032 series focuses on the composer’s psychological subtlety in its focus on a central work: his Symphony no.45, known as the ‘Abschieds-Symphonie’ (‘Farewell’ Symphony), composed in 1772. It is said to have got its nickname from a symbolic message Haydn conveyed to Prince Esterházy when he and his orchestra were required to stay longer than planned in the Prince’s summer residence. On the occasion of the symphony’s first performance, Haydn had arranged for the musicians to leave their places one by one during the final Adagio. The day after the concert, all the musicians were able to return to their families and bid farewell to the Prince, who had obviously taken the point of this poetic request for ‘liberation’ expressed in music. The programme is completed by Symphonies nos. 15 and 35 and a cantata sung by Sandrine Piau, the heart-rending ‘Berenice, che fai?’ on a text by Metastasio that was a real ‘hit’ of the eighteenth century, set by some forty composers.