The senses reign, and Reason now is dead (Petrarch). Giovanni Antonini, flautist and founder of the legendary Italian ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, enjoys musical voyages, the discursiveness of music. He begins with an anonymous 16th century pavane, La Morte della Ragione (The Death of Reason), which he believes refers to In Praise of Folly, in which its author Erasmus distinguishes between two forms of madness: a sweet illusion of the spirit, and a negative form, one that the vengeful Furies conjure up from hell…

For her first collaboration with the period ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, violinist Isabelle Faust performs the five Violin Concertos of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, along with three shorter concertante works. This is an extraordinary set, for the historically informed performances, the polished sound of the group, the almost palpable presence of the players, which Harmonia Mundi has captured with superior engineering, and for the unrepressed joy in the music. Faust is the center of attention, naturally, and her refined and expressive playing immediately pulls the listener in. These are far from the most demanding concertos in the repertoire, so Faust is less concerned with technical execution than with conveying the pure feeling of the music, which is delightfully buoyant and uplifting. Under the direction of Giovanni Antonini, the group provides warm and sparkling accompaniment that gives Faust all the support she needs, but there's no doubt that she sets the emotional tone for these exquisite recordings. Highly recommended, especially for devotees of Classical style at its finest.

The Esterházy princes’ love of hunting prompted their ‘house composer’ Joseph Haydn to make extensive use of the horn. At the time, this was still the hand horn (Waldhorn), limited to ‘natural’ harmonics, since it did not yet have valves. Between 1761 and 1790 there were a total eighteen horn players in princely service, but no trumpeters! So, in his Symphony no.48 of 1769, for example, Haydn used the horns as ‘replacement trumpets’, instructing them to play an octave higher than usual. The horns strike a flamboyant note in Haydn’s symphonies, which is probably why an anonymous copyist of no.59 dubbed it the ‘Fire’ Symphony. The Symphony no.31 ‘Horn Signal’ (1765) gives its name to this thirteenth volume in the Haydn2032 Edition. The four horns ring out majestically and the musicians of Il Giardino Armonico perform this music in their characteristically impetuous style, under the fiery direction of Giovanni Antonini.

Multi award-winning period performance ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, led by the charismatic and inspiring Giovanni Antonini, make their first appearance on the newly invigorated l'oiseau lyre label with a wonderful new recording of Handel's 12 concerti grossi op. 6 to mark the composer's anniversary year (2009). Handel's concerti grossi, op. 6 are one of the pillars of baroque orchestral music. Il Giardino Armonico takes a characteristically dramatic and instinctively Italian view of the music (Handel did after all hone his compositional skills in Italy before settling in England). The group hopes to reclaim Handel for Italy by exploring some of the unique qualities that their native temperament can bring to the music.

With his album "Concertos" the charismatic mandolinist Avi Avital fulfills a dream and collaborates with the renowned ensemble for historical instruments "Il Giardino Armonico" and its conductor and founder Giovanni Antonini. Together they interpret three concertos for mandolin by Emanuele Barbella, Giovanni Paisiello and Johann Nepomuk Hummel, as well as Avital's own arrangements of concertos by J. S. Bach and Vivaldi. Of the three original works for mandolin, two are from Naples.

Locatelli was one of the most impressive violin virtuosos of the first half of the eighteenth century. Considered today as a sort of Baroque Paganini, he left picturesque, colourful, strikingly modern pieces for his instrument. A few years after a Mozart collaboration that earned them worldwide acclaim, Isabelle Faust and the musicians of Il Giardino Armonico bring out the full narrative intensity of these concertos, worthy of the operatic stage!

Un portrait de Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) sans concerto pour violoncelle, sans le menuet fameux du quintette en mi majeur ? Mais non moins fidèle au caractère du compositeur toscan émigré en Espagne : fantasque et passionné.

Looking ahead to the 300th anniversary of the birth of Haydn in 2032, the Joseph Haydn Foundation of Basel has joined forces with the Alpha Classics label to record all of the composer’s 107 symphonies. This ambitious project is placed under the artistic direction of Giovanni Antonini, who now presents the third volume, after two previous issues that attracted great attention and received numerous awards, including the Echo Klassik Prize 2015 for the ‘best orchestral recording’ of the year.

“This is how I want to make music!” That was Avi Avital’s reaction when he first saw Il Giardino Armonico and Giovanni Antonini play live in Jerusalem. He’s now joined by the ensemble and its conductor and co-founder on his latest album, entitled simply Concertos and featuring original concertos for mandolin by Barbella, Paisiello and Hummel alongside Avital’s own adaptations of concertos by J.S. Bach and Vivaldi. The album comes out on 17 November – pre-order it today and enjoy the new pre-release track ‘Paisiello: III. Allegretto’.

Fireworks, virtuosity and bravura pieces are essential ingredients of Vivaldi’s concerto oeuvre. Discover or rediscover Vivaldi’s concertos played by the most prestigious artists.

Though he called them concertos, Vivaldi’s RV87-108 are basically chamber pieces, comprising obbligato parts for between three to six instruments (mostly winds) plus basso continuo. Of the 22 such concertos attributed to Vivaldi, three are now considered spurious: the remaining 19 have been collected onto CD by a new Italian period-instrument group, Il Giardino Armonico. The vigour, the zest of these performances is infectious. Il Giardino Armonico marry sharp ensembles to breezy tempos and at times a markedly exuberant sense of dynamics. Some may find the results abrasive, but I enjoyed the extra frisson of drama the group extracts from the music.

"The age of the castratos was one of the most dazzling and remarkable in European music history. Seldom has there ever been such a complete fusion of sensuousness and splendor, form and content, poetry and music, and, above all, such a perfection of vocal virtuosity, as was achieved in the glory days of the Baroque era. The legendary art of the castratos continues to exert its fascination even today, and despite the great human sacrifice it exacted, a new assessment of this extraordinary period is surely justified." - Cecilia Bartoli Cecilia Bartoli uncovers the extraordinary and cruel world of the `Castrati' and sings the glorious music they inspired. The all-new album consists almost entirely of world-premiere recordings of some of the most virtuosic music ever written for the human voice.

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.