Giovanni Antonini conducts Mozart and Haydn

Giovanni Antonini conducts Mozart and Haydn

Few people are as passionate about the music of Joseph Haydn as Giovanni Antonini. He is currently in the process of recording all 107 of the composer’s symphonies – with a fresh, arresting approach. In this concert, we hear two symphonies of captivating originality and inspiration. Also on the programme are the cantata Arianna a Naxos, a touching emotional drama of an abandoned woman featuring Egyptian soprano Fatma Said, and Mozart’s little-known incidental music Thamos, King in Egypt, which is impressive in its dramatic power.

Giovanni Antonini conducts Mozart and Haydn

Few people are as passionate about the music of Joseph Haydn as Giovanni Antonini. He is currently in the process of recording all 107 of the composer’s symphonies – with a fresh, arresting approach. In this concert, we hear two symphonies of captivating originality and inspiration. Also on the programme are the cantata Arianna a Naxos, a touching emotional drama of an abandoned woman featuring Egyptian soprano Fatma Said, and Mozart’s little-known incidental music Thamos, King in Egypt, which is impressive in its dramatic power.

Giovanni Antonini conducts Mendelssohn's "Italienische"

Journeys are an excellent balm for the soul – Mendelssohn already knew this when he set off for Italy in 1830 and, during a stopover in Weimar, may well have heard his friend Goethe say: »The free sea frees the spirit«. The Italian landscape inspired Mendelssohn to compose his fourth symphony: especially the melodic, gushing opening movement and the intoxicating saltarello finale seem wonderfully bathed in sunlight. Mozart's numerous itineraries have also left their mark: in 1773, at the age of only sixteen, he wrote the sometimes jubilant, sometimes heartfelt motet »Exsultate, jubilate« in Milan for an Italian castrato who is said to have sung »like an angel«. No less angelic will star soprano Julia Lezhneva perform this work for us. Unlike Mozart, Haydn spent most of his time in the provinces in his cherished »Esterházy's fairy land«, except for his later trips to London – but the great cities nevertheless became aware of him, so he travelled in spirit. The symphony no. 85, written for Paris in 1785, was given the title »La Reine« because Queen Marie Antoinette held it in particularly high esteem: A splendid composition that takes the folk song »La gentille et jeune Lisette« and integrates it with a number of surprises. Rossini also left behind grandiose numbers in his many operas, such as the soulful lament »Assisa a piè d'un salice« and the bravura aria »Tanti affetti in tal momento«. Born in a small harbour town on the Adriatic Sea, he was revered throughout Europe. We look forward to the conducting of Giovanni Antonini, who has become a regular guest in Bamberg!Recording & broadcast BR-KLASSIK

Giovanni Antonini conducts Mendelssohn's "Italienische"

Journeys are an excellent balm for the soul – Mendelssohn already knew this when he set off for Italy in 1830 and, during a stopover in Weimar, may well have heard his friend Goethe say: »The free sea frees the spirit«. The Italian landscape inspired Mendelssohn to compose his fourth symphony: especially the melodic, gushing opening movement and the intoxicating saltarello finale seem wonderfully bathed in sunlight. Mozart's numerous itineraries have also left their mark: in 1773, at the age of only sixteen, he wrote the sometimes jubilant, sometimes heartfelt motet »Exsultate, jubilate« in Milan for an Italian castrato who is said to have sung »like an angel«. No less angelic will star soprano Julia Lezhneva perform this work for us. Unlike Mozart, Haydn spent most of his time in the provinces in his cherished »Esterházy's fairy land«, except for his later trips to London – but the great cities nevertheless became aware of him, so he travelled in spirit. The symphony no. 85, written for Paris in 1785, was given the title »La Reine« because Queen Marie Antoinette held it in particularly high esteem: A splendid composition that takes the folk song »La gentille et jeune Lisette« and integrates it with a number of surprises. Rossini also left behind grandiose numbers in his many operas, such as the soulful lament »Assisa a piè d'un salice« and the bravura aria »Tanti affetti in tal momento«. Born in a small harbour town on the Adriatic Sea, he was revered throughout Europe. We look forward to the conducting of Giovanni Antonini, who has become a regular guest in Bamberg!Recording & broadcast BR-KLASSIK

Giovanni Antonini

»Music should touch the heart!« Giovanni Antonini is a phenomenal artist who succeeds in realising this credo of 18th century composers. The Italian conductor likes to indulge in the emotional worlds that the works tell us about, immersing himself in the effects and emotions. A musician who has his own language in the midst of all the performers, whose signature is unmistakable and who breathes a lot of fresh air. His energy is truly infectious – and when asked where he gets it from, he once replied in an interview: »I get it from the music. Even after a concert, which was exhausting and tiring, I’m always tired in a positive sense, that’s the difference. And so on the day after, I’m ready for a new musical adventure. And of course there is also my great love for music!« However, he is not only a fiery spirit, but also a sharp-witted analyst. He is particularly well-known for his innovative and sophisticated approaches to the baroque and classical repertoire – and we love to regularly and intensively explore this historical approach with him. This time he takes us into Mozart's adventure world: his last two symphonies are on the programme. In between, there is another »musical adventure«, which Giovanni Antonini has rarely done recently, but which he is happy to do with us: as an accomplished recorder player, he himself takes on the solo part in Telemann’s original instrumental concerto. Our audience is in for a wonderful musical stroll through the colours and temperaments of the 18th century – where the point was always to »delight the connoisseurs and lovers of music«.

Giovanni Antonini

Giovanni Antonini & Lydia Teuscher

Among conductors, Giovanni Antonini continues to number among the “savages” who use ultra-brisk tempos to breathe unparalleled passion and vivacity into the music of bygone eras. In the meantime he no longer specialises in Baroque music, but increasingly devotes himself to the Classical and early Romantic periods. Between Mozart’s “Little” G minor Symphony and Haydn’s “Drumroll” Symphony (written for London), the soprano Lydia Teuscher will sing three famous concert arias by Mozart and Mendelssohn. The Mozart arias were originally inserted into comic operas by other composers; today they can be heard in concert as precious gems in their own right. Mendelssohn composed his aria of love and vengeance for Maria Malibran, placing at her side a poignant violin solo to be played by the virtuoso Charles-Auguste de Bériot, her lover at the time and later her husband.

Giovanni Antonini & Lydia Teuscher

Among conductors, Giovanni Antonini continues to number among the “savages” who use ultra-brisk tempos to breathe unparalleled passion and vivacity into the music of bygone eras. In the meantime he no longer specialises in Baroque music, but increasingly devotes himself to the Classical and early Romantic periods. Between Mozart’s “Little” G minor Symphony and Haydn’s “Drumroll” Symphony (written for London), the soprano Lydia Teuscher will sing three famous concert arias by Mozart and Mendelssohn. The Mozart arias were originally inserted into comic operas by other composers; today they can be heard in concert as precious gems in their own right. Mendelssohn composed his aria of love and vengeance for Maria Malibran, placing at her side a poignant violin solo to be played by the virtuoso Charles-Auguste de Bériot, her lover at the time and later her husband.

Basel Chamber Orchestra / Giovanni Antonini

A servant tricks a nobleman: even in the arts, such a thing was practically a call for revolution in 1786. And yet the title character of Mozart’s opera »Le nozze di Figaro« was allowed to take his employer Count Almaviva for a full ride on the stage of the Vienna Court Opera that very year and end up making a real fool of himself. The Emperor himself had authorised the performance after Mozart had played him a few pieces from the new opera: he was evidently just as unable to resist the pull of the wonderful music as the audience, who still celebrate the opera as one of Mozart’s absolute masterpieces to this day. At the Elbphilharmonie, the performance of this brilliant work by Mozart specialist Giovanni Antonini with his Basel Chamber Orchestra and a top-class line-up of soloists promises nothing less than a masterly performance.

Giovanni Antonini & Maria João Pires

Schubert was just sixteen years old when he began working on the first of his eight symphonies in 1813, the last of which he completed in 1825. At the age of nineteen, he began writing his Fourth, the “Tragic,” which moves from C minor to C major, i.e. from darkness to light – “per aspera ad astra.” The Fifth Symphony is even more optimistic, striving from the first bar towards a “brighter, better life” and a cheerful buoyancy that dissolves all melancholy. Incidentally, this is the closest Schubert ever got in his compositional output to the Mozartean ideal of beauty – as exemplified in the “Jenamy” Piano Concerto, “Mozart’s Eroica” (Alfred Einstein): original, virtuosic, and daring. Another highlight of this concert is the collaboration of Maria João Pires and Giovanni Antonini, two artists with whom the BRSO has a close relationship.