Il Giardino Armonico

The award-winning ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, which concentrates on Baroque repertoire performed on period instruments, has regularly partnered with leading soloists for both live appearances and studio projects while also providing the orchestra for numerous historically informed opera productions. In 2014 the group inaugurated its Haydn2032 series on the Alpha label with the goal of completing a full cycle of Haydn symphonies in time for the composer’s 300th birth anniversary in 2032; the ninth and tenth volumes reached the public in 2021.

Giovanni Antonini formed Il Giardino Armonico in Milan in 1985 and has led the ensemble as its conductor since 1989. Because membership expands or contracts according to the demands of each program, the collective can present chamber, symphonic, and operatic works from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It appears frequently at festivals and concert halls worldwide and has staged operas by Monteverdi, Vivaldi, and Handel, including a 2012 Salzburg Festival production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare with mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli. Cellist Christophe Coin, violinist Viktoria Mullova, and the piano duo of Katia and Marielle Labèque are among the distinguished soloists who have appeared with the group.

Its large and prize-laden discography, launched in 1989 on Nuova Era with the album Vivaldi: Concerti di Camera, constitutes its chief claim to fame. An exclusive Teldec contract signed in 1991 brought widespread recognition from both audiences and critics, resulting in thirteen Diapason d’Or awards, four Gramophone Awards, and a Grammy Award for The Vivaldi Album recorded with Bartoli. After moving to Alpha, Il Giardino Armonico began the Haydn2032 cycle in 2014 with La Passione and rejoined Bartoli in 2019 for the album Farinelli, which earned a further Grammy nomination. Volumes nine (L'Addio) and ten (Les Heures du Jour) of the series appeared in 2021.