The new Label RedDress and Armoniosa are proud to present this new and original version of the 12 concerti by Antonio Vivaldi that make up the collection of the L'Estro Armonico, op.3. This concerto, along with the others in Vivaldi’s L'estro Armonico (Harmonic Inspiration), the 12-concerto opus where this piece was published, is a great example of such a work. L'estro Armonico was Vivaldi’s first collection of concertos to published, coming out in 1711. Vivaldi had five known siblings: Bonaventura Tomaso Vivaldi, Margarita Gabriela Vivaldi, Cecilia Maria Vivaldi, Francesco Gaetano Vivaldi, and Zanetta Anna Vivaldi. His father, Giovanni Battista, who was a barber before becoming a professional violinist, taught Antonio to play the violin and then toured Venice playing the violin with his young son. I Musici’s performance of Vivaldis L’Estro Armonico is an excellent example of musical artistry at its best. My take on these presentations is that I Musici is not engaged in period instrument performances here. What we have are modern instruments being played at their very best. Antonio Vivaldi and others Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin; Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini, cond. Alpha 624 (Auditioned as 24/192 WAV). Jean-Daniel Noir, prod., edit., master.
Founded in 1985 and conducted by Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico has established itself as one of the world’s leading period instrument ensembles, bringing together musicians from Europe’s relevant music institutions. The ensemble’s repertoire mainly focuses on the 17th and 18th century. Depending on the demands of each program, the group consists of six up to thirty musicians.
Il Giardino Armonico is regularly invited to festivals all over the world performing in the most important concert halls and receiving high acclaim for both concerts and opera productions, such as Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Vivaldi’s Ottone in Villa, Handel’s Agrippina, Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, La Resurrezione and Giulio Cesare in Egitto with Cecilia Bartoli during the 2012 edition of the Salzburg Whitsun and Summer Festival.
Besides, Il Giardino Armonico sustains an intense recording activity.
After many years as an exclusive ensemble of Teldec achieving several major awards for the recordings of works by Vivaldi and the other 18th century composers, the orchestra had an exclusive agreement with Decca/L’Oiseau-Lyre recording Handel’s Concerti Grossi op. VI and the cantata Il Pianto di Maria with Bernarda Fink. Il Giardino Armonico also released on Naïve La Casa del Diavolo, Vivaldi’s Cello Concertos with Christophe Coin, as well as the opera Ottone in Villa, that won the Diapason d’Or in 2011. Furthermore, for the label Onyx it recorded Vivaldi’s Violin Concertos with Viktoria Mullova.
After the universal success and the Grammy Award received for TheVivaldi Album with Cecilia Bartoli (Decca, 2000), a new cooperation with her in 2009 led to the project Sacrificium (Decca), a Platinum Album in France and Belgium and a further Grammy Award. The most recent project with Cecilia Bartoli brought about the release of the album Farinelli (Decca, 2019).
On Decca Il Giardino Armonico also published Alleluia (2013) and Händel in Italy (2015) with Julia Lezhneva, volumes acclaimed by the public and critics.
In co-production with National Forum of Music in Wroclaw (Poland), Il Giardino Armonico published Serpent & Fire with Anna Prohaska (Alpha Classics – Outhere Music Group, 2016) winning the ICMA “Baroque Vocal” in 2017. The ensemble recorded the Telemann CD and LP (Alpha Classics, 2016), that won the Diapason d’Or de l’Année and the Echo Klassik Award in 2017.
The recording of five Mozart Violin Concertos with Isabelle Faust (Harmonia Mundi, 2016) stands as the result of the prestigious cooperation with the great violinist, winning the Gramophone Award and Le Choc de l’année in 2017.
Vivaldi L'estro Armonico Youtube
A new Vivaldi Album Concerti per flauto has been published (Alpha Classics, March 2020), winning the Diapason d’Or: a generous bouquet of this repertoire with Giovanni Antonini as soloist, recorded between 2011 and 2017.
Il Giardino Armonico is part of the project Haydn2032, for which the Haydn Stiftung Basel was created to support both the recording project of the complete Haydn Symphonies (label: Alpha Classics) and a series of concerts in various European cities with thematic programs focused on this repertoire. In November 2014 the first album titled La Passione was released and won the Echo Klassik Award (2015). Il Filosofo, issued in 2015, has been awarded with the “Choc of the Year” by Classica. The third album Solo e Pensoso was released in August 2016; the fourth Il Distratto in March 2017, winning the Gramophone Award in the same year. The eighth volume La Roxolana has been published in Jan 2020, and the ninth one L’Addio in Jan 2021, winning the “Choc of the Year” by Classica.
Now the series is enriched by another monument by the Austrian composer: Die Schöpfung (The Creation) has been published in October 2020 with the Bavarian Radio Chorus.
The ensemble worked also with such acclaimed soloists as Giuliano Carmignola, Sol Gabetta, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Viktoria Mullova and Giovanni Sollima.
In 2018 Il Giardino Armonico continued the collaboration with the young and gifted violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja with a new program of fertile tension between past and future, bringing together philological accuracy and contemporary music: the volume What’s next Vivaldi? has been published in October 2020 on Alpha Classics.
Vivaldi Estro Armonico
The most recent projects include the recording of La morte della Ragione (co-produced with National Forum of Music in Wroclaw, published by Alpha Classics and awarded with the Diapason d’Or in 2019), a program focused on the raise of Baroque sensibility through Europe and the search for a renewed listening experience of early music.
Antonio Vivaldi was one of the most successful composers of the Baroque era, best known for his iconic set concertos for violin, The Four Seasons. L’Estro Armonico Op.3 is among the most important printed editions of Vivaldi’s concertos; the works immediately met with great acclaim after their publication in 1711, giving way to over 30 reprints in the subsequent 32 years. Indeed, this was the first collection of concerti to be published with a title, showing that the composer himself was aware of the nature of this extraordinary event. The work was originally dedicated to Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici, son and heir of Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany. This special release is the world premiere recording based on the edition by Michael Talbot, of the Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice and has been produced in collaboration with Ricordi and Universal Music Publishing. L’Arte dell’Arco is an internationally renowned ensemble that has achieved great acclaim through performances and recordings. Each member is handpicked from the elite of the Italian classical music scene and has performed with many period orchestras across Europe. The group regularly takes part in early music festivals and has, in recent years, toured extensively outside of Europe in the Far East and South America. Artistic Director and Concert Master Federico Guglielmo has been hailed by the Boston Globe as “the new star of the ancient music landscape” and was the winner of the Antonio Vivaldi International Recording Prize, also receiving a Diapason d’Or for his recording of Vivaldi concertos.
After the iconic ‘Le Quattro Stagioni’, the collection of 12 violin concertos Op. 3, ‘L’Estro Armonico’ is the most popular and well known of all of Vivaldi’s works. It is vintage Vivaldi: lively, exuberant and brilliant allegros, spun‐out cantilenas in Italian ‘belcanto’ style, and a general feel of Italian passion and good humour. Violinist Federico Guglielmo is one of Italy’s foremost fiddlers, a pioneer of Early Music Performance Practice, a bon vivant understanding the secrets of Vivaldi’s language like few others. Played from the New Vivaldi Edition as published by the Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi and the Fondazione Giorgio Cini. A superb addition to the Vivaldi series (the complete Opus 1‐12) by L’Arte dell’Arco, and Federico Guglielmo!
Vivaldi L'estro Armonico Best Recording
Contains liner notes on the composer and works and performer biographies.