Gardiner Baroque

Gardiner’s reading of the St. Matthew Passion is conceived and executed on the highest level, an example of period practice that is unlikely to be bettered any time soon. The performance as a whole vibrates with life: soloists are first-rate, and wonderfully well chosen for their respective parts, and the work of chorus and orchestra is exemplary. The recording, made in 1988 in the spacious ambience of The Maltings, Snape, near Aldeburgh, is well balanced and exceptionally vivid.

Deutsche Grammophon presents a complete survey of Sir John Eliot Gardiner's recordings for Achiv Produktion and DG. Orchestras & Choirs: Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists, the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantic, the Wiener Philharmoniker, NDR-Chor, NDR Sinfonieorchester, and the London Symphony Orchestra. Soloists include: Anne Sofie von Otter, Ian Bostridge, Barbara Bonney, Emma Kirkby, Mark Padmore, Bernarda Fink, Magdalena Kozena, Bryn Terfel, and many more.

In the historic Weimar Herder Church Sir John Eliot Gardiner finds the perfect setting for his recording of the Bach Christmas Oratorio. Against the backdrop of the dramatic altar and Lucas Granach paintings, the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists perform Gardiner's new interpretation of this classic piece. With this interpretation of the Christmas Oratorio, Gardiner shows himself once again to be an incontestible specialist of Bach's music.

“This large-scale live recording (Gardiner's second) was made in Venice's St Mark's Basilica. It captures the drama as well as the ceremonial aspect of the work, despite sometimes cloudy recorded sound.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide. “Gardiner's second [recording of the Vespers], spectacularly recorded live in St Mark's, has a punchy choral sound, near-operatic solo singing (Bryn Terfel and Alistair Miles are among the basses), emphatic enunciation, big contrasts and deliberate exploitation of the building's spaces. Its outright theatricality sets it apart from other performances.” Gramophone Magazine.

Taking the Bach cantatas as a basis for a year-long pilgrimage in 2000, conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner led the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists on an emotional and artistically triumphant world tour to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the composer's death. These performances feature Cantatas 179, 199, and 113, all composed for the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, in marvelously dramatic interpretations by the choir and soloists, including soprano Magdalena Kozen, alto William Towers, tenor Mark Padmore, and bass Stephan Loges.

John Eliot Gardiner is one of the leading conductors in the active authentic performances movement in England, performing Baroque music but also extending his range into later repertoire. He first conducted at the age of 15, and after finishing school he studied at King's College, Cambridge. While still an undergraduate, he conducted the combined Oxford and Cambridge Singers on a 1964 tour of the Middle East and founded the Monteverdi Choir, which has consistently performed on his recordings since.

In this recording of Bach’s Suite No. 1, John Eliot Gardiner follows Passepieds I and II with Bach’s own setting of the chorale Dir, dir, Jehova, will ich singen BWV 299. The joyous text celebrates praise and discipleship, prolonging the suite’s exuberant mood. No other recorded version features a vocal tailpiece, but if you don’t like it, simply program your player to skip track 8. It’s good to find both parts of the Overtures to these works repeated (Frans Brüggen omits second-section repeats), but at times Gardiner can seem too rugged and unyielding for what is, after all, ceremonial or occasional music.

The central question was always about how much needs to be added to the surviving notes in order to make Poppea viable on stage. Gardiner and his advisers believe that nothing needs adding and that the 'orchestra' played only when explicitly notated in the score and was a very small group.