A cantata (literally "sung", derived from the Italian word "cantare") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir.

The meaning of the term changed over time, from the simple single voice madrigal of the early 17th century, to the multi-voice "cantata da camera" and the "cantata da chiesa" of the later part of that century, from the more substantial dramatic forms of the 18th century (including the 200-odd church and secular cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach) to the usually sacred-texted 19th-century cantata, which was effectively a type of short oratorio.^[1] Several cantatas were written for special occasions, such as Christmas cantatas.

Historical context[link]

The term originated in the early 17th century simultaneously with opera and oratorio. Prior to that all "cultured" music was vocal. With the rise of instrumental music the term appeared, while the instrumental art became sufficiently developed to be embodied in sonatas. From the beginning of the 17th century until late in the 18th, the cantata for one or two solo voices with accompaniment of basso continuo (and perhaps a few solo instruments) was a principal form of Italian vocal chamber music.^[2]

A cantata consisted first of a declamatory narrative or scene in recitative, held together by a primitive aria repeated at intervals. Fine examples may be found in the church music of Giacomo Carissimi; and the English vocal solos of Henry Purcell (such as Mad Tom and Mad Bess) show the utmost that can be made of this archaic form. With the rise of the da capo aria, the cantata became a group of two or three arias joined by recitative. George Frideric Handel's numerous Italian duets and trios are examples on a rather large scale. His Latin motet Silete Venti, for soprano solo, shows the use of this form in church music.

Differences from other musical forms[link]

	"Dialogus inter Christum et fidelem animam" A sacred cantata by Dieterich Buxtehude 6. Chorale: Wohl mir, daß ich Jesum habe (0:25) From the cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147 by Johann Sebastian Bach (Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt)
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

The Italian solo cantata tended, when on a large scale, to become indistinguishable from a scene in an opera, in the same way the church cantata, solo or choral, is indistinguishable from a small oratorio or portion of an oratorio. This is equally evident whether we examine the unparalleled church cantatas of Bach, of which nearly 200 are extant (see List of Bach cantatas), or the Chandos Anthems of Handel. In Johann Sebastian Bach's case many of the larger cantatas are actually called oratorios; and the Christmas Oratorio is a collection of six church cantatas actually intended for performance on six different days, though together forming as complete an artistic whole as any classical oratorio.

Baroque[link]

Cantatas were in great demand for the services of the Lutheran church. Sacred cantatas for the liturgy or other occasions were not only composed by Bach but also by Dieterich Buxtehude, Christoph Graupner, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel and Georg Philipp Telemann, to name a few. Many secular cantatas were composed for events in the nobility. They were so similar in form to the sacred ones that many of them were parodied (in parts or completely) to sacred cantatas, for example in Bach's Christmas Oratorio.

Classical and romantic period[link]

The term cantata came to be applied almost exclusively to choral works, as distinguished from solo vocal music. In early 19th-century cantatas the chorus is the vehicle for music more lyric and songlike than in oratorio, not excluding the possibility of a brilliant climax in a fugue as in Ludwig van Beethoven's Glorreiche Augenblick, Carl Maria von Weber's Jubel-Kantate, and Felix Mendelssohn's Die erste Walpurgisnacht. Mendelssohn's Symphony Cantata, the Lobgesang, is a hybrid work, partly in the oratorio style. It is preceded by three symphonic movements, a device avowedly suggested by Beethoven's ninth symphony; but the analogy is not accurate, as Beethoven's work is a symphony of which the fourth movement is a choral finale of essentially single design, whereas Mendelssohn's Symphony Cantata is a cantata with three symphonic preludes. Robert Schumann wrote the cantata Paradise and the Peri. The full lyric possibilities of a string of choral songs were realized by Johannes Brahms in his Rinaldo, that—like the Walpurgisnacht—was set to a text by Goethe. Other cantatas, Beethoven's Meeresstille, works of Brahms and many notable small English choral works, such as cantatas of John Henry Maunder and John Stanley, find various ways to set poetry to choral music. The competition for the French Prix de Rome prescribed that each candidate submit a cantata. Hector Berlioz failed in three attempts before finally winning in 1830 with Sardanapale. While almost all of the Prix de Rome cantatas have long since been forgotten (along with their composers, for the most part), Debussy's prize-winning L'enfant prodigue (1884, following his unsuccessful Le gladiateur of 1883) is still performed occasionally today. Late in the century, Gustav Mahler wrote his early Das klagende Lied on his own words, between 1878 and 1880, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor created a successful trilogy of cantatas The Song of Hiawatha between 1898 and 1900.

Twentieth century and beyond[link]

Cantatas, both of the chamber variety and on a grand scale, were composed after 1900 as well. In the early part of the century, secular cantatas once again became prominent, while the 19th-century tradition of sacred cantatas also continued. Ralph Vaughan Williams composed both kinds: "festival" cantatas such as Toward the Unknown Region (1907), Five Mystical Songs (1911), and Five Tudor Portraits (1936), and sacred cantatas including Sancta civitas (1926), Benedicite (1930), Dona nobis pacem (1936), and Hodie (1954). Joseph Ryelandt also composed secular and sacred cantatas, such as Le chant de la pauvreté op. 92 in 1928 and Veni creator op. 123 in 1938. Béla Bartók composed the secular Cantata Profana, subtitled "The Nine Splendid Stags" and based on a Romanian folk tale, in 1930. Although it began as a song cycle (as reflected also by its title), Arnold Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder (1900–1903/1910–11) evolved into one of the century's largest secular cantatas. Paul Hindemith composed three works he designated as cantatas: Die Serenaden, op. 35, for soprano, oboe, viola, and cello (1924), Mahnung an die Jugend, sich der Musik zu befleissigen (from the Plöner Musiktage, 1932), and Ite angeli veloces for alto and tenor, mixed chorus, and orchestra, with audience participation (1953–55). Of Anton Webern's last three compositions, two are secular cantatas: Cantata No. 1, op. 29 (1938–39), and Cantata No. 2, op. 31 (1941–43), both setting texts by Hildegard Jone. Webern had begun sketching a Third Cantata by the time he was killed in 1945. Ernst Krenek also composed two examples: a "scenic cantata", Die Zwingburg, op. 14 (1922), and a Cantata for Wartime, op. 95, for women's voices and orchestra (1943). Sergei Prokofiev composed Semero ikh (1917–18; rev. 1933), and in 1939 premiered a cantata drawn from the film music for Alexander Nevsky. Among the most famous of all cantatas is Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, written 1935–36; the introductory and concluding movement, O Fortuna, has been used in countless films, and has become some of the most recognizable music ever written.^{[citation needed]}

Patriotic cantatas celebrating anniversaries of events in the Revolution or extolling state leaders were frequently commissioned in the Soviet Union between 1930 and the middle of the century, though these occasional works were seldom among their composers' best. Examples include Dmitri Shostakovich's Poem of the Motherland, op. 47 (1947) and The Sun Shines over Our Motherland, op. 90 (1952), and thee works by Prokofiev, Zdravitsa! [Hail to Stalin] (1939), along with two festival cantatas, the Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution, op. 74, and Flourish, Mighty Homeland, op. 114, for the thirtieth anniversary of the same event. Dmitry Kabalevsky also composed four such cantatas, The Great Homeland, op. 35 (1941–42), The Song of Morning, Spring and Peace, op. 57 (1957–58), Leninists, op. 63 (1959), and About Our Native Land, op. 82 (1965).

In 1940, the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos created a secular cantata titled Mandu çarará, based on an Indian legend collected by Barbosa Rodrigues. Igor Stravinsky composed a work titled simply Cantata in 1951–52, which used stanzas from the 15th-century "Lyke-wake Dirge" as a narrative frame for other anonymous English lyrics, and later designated A Sermon, a Narrative, and a Prayer (1961) as "a cantata for alto and tenor soli, speaker, chorus, and orchestra". Hans Werner Henze composed a Cantata della fiaba estrema and Novae de infinito laudes (both in 1963), as well as a number of other works that might be regarded as cantatas, such as Kammermusik (1958, rev. 1963), Muzen Siziliens (1966), and El Cimarrón (1969–70). Momente (1962–64/1969), one of the most important works of Karlheinz Stockhausen, is often described as a cantata. Benjamin Britten composed at least six works he designated as cantatas: The Company of Heaven (1937), Rejoice in the Lamb, op. 30 (1943), Saint Nicolas, op. 42 (1949), the Cantata academica, op. 62 (1959), the Cantata Misericordium, op. 69 (1963), and Phaedra, op. 93 (1975). Alberto Ginastera also composed three works in this form: the Cantata para América Mágica, op. 27 (1960), Bomarzo, op. 32 (1964), and Milena, op. 37 (1971), and Gottfried von Einem composed in 1973 An die Nachgeborenen based on diverse texts, the title taken from a poem of Bertolt Brecht. Mikis Theodorakis composed the cantatas According to the Sadducees and Canto Olympico. Herbert Blendinger's Media in vita was premiered in 1980, his Mich ruft zuweilen eine Stille (Sometimes a silence calls me) in (1992), and Allein den Betern kann es noch gelingen (It can only be achieved by those who pray) in 1995. Iván Erőd wrote in 1988/89) Vox Lucis (Voice of the Light), op. 56. Ivan Moody wrote in 1995 Revelation. Cantatas were also composed by Mark Alburger, Erik Bergman, Carlos Chávez, Osvald Chlubna, Peter Maxwell Davies, Norman Dello Joio, Lukas Foss, Roy Harris, Arthur Honegger, Alan Hovhaness, Dmitry Kabalevsky, Libby Larsen, Peter Mennin, Dimitri Nicolau, Krzysztof Penderecki, Daniel Pinkham, Earl Robinson, Ned Rorem, William Schuman, Roger Sessions, Siegfried Strohbach, Michael Tippett, and Kurt Weill.

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Cantatas

• Timms, Colin, Nigel Fortune, Malcolm Boyd, Friedhelm Krummacher, David Tunley, James R. Goodall, and Juan José Carreras. 2001. "Cantata". 2001. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.

External links[link]

• Dolmetsch music dictionary: C–Car
• Multimedia Dictionary: Cantata at Virginia Tech

Peter Schreier (1976)

Peter Schreier (born 29 July 1935) is a German tenor and conductor.

Early life[link]

Schreier was born in Meissen, Saxony, and spent his first years in the small village of Gauernitz, near Meissen, where his father was a teacher, cantor and organist. In June 1945, when Schreier was almost ten years old, and just a few months after the destruction of Dresden, he entered the boarding school of the famous Dresden boys' choir, the Dresdner Kreuzchor (Choir of the Kreuzkirche or Church of the Cross). The choir had just been re-established. The young Peter and the few other choir members and teachers lived in a cellar in the outskirts of Dresden.

The conductor of the Kreuzchor, Rudolf Mauersberger, soon recognized Peter Schreier's great talent. He let him sing many solo alto parts and also created compositions that perfectly fitted Peter's boy voice. Solo recordings of Peter Schreier were made at the time (1948-1951) and are obtainable on compact disc even today.

Schreier was 16 years old when his voice broke, and he became a tenor, as he had passionately wished, because of the several Evangelists - all tenors - in J.S. Bach's Passions and in his Christmas Oratorio. After he had decided to become a professional singer he took lessons, at first privately, then later on at the Dresden Academy of Music. He had enough time to also study choral and orchestral conducting.

Musical career[link]

Peter Schreier made his professional debut in August 1959, playing the role of the First Prisoner in Fidelio by Beethoven. In the years that followed he was successful as Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Abduction from the Seraglio) and somewhat later as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), both operas by Mozart.

In 1963 he was employed by the Berlin State Opera at Unter den Linden. Starting in 1966 he was for many years an annual guest of the Vienna State Opera. That same year he made his debut in Bayreuth as the young seaman in Tristan und Isolde with Karl Böhm as conductor. For 25 years, beginning in 1967, he took part in the program of the annual Salzburg Festival. In 1969, he starred as The Witch in Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel, in a CD recording that featured the Staatskapelle Dresden.

He also sang Loge in Das Rheingold & Mime in Siegfried by Wagner. It was important to him to sing the title role of Palestrina, the opera by Hans Pfitzner, not only in Munich but also in East Berlin — a controversial issue at the time in East Germany.

He recorded Bach cantatas with Adele Stolte, Annelies Burmeister, Theo Adam, the Thomanerchor and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Erhard Mauersberger, such as the cantata for Pentecost Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten! BWV 172 in 1970.^[1] Recordings of the Bach's St Matthew Passion have included the version conducted by both Rudolf and Eduard Mauersberger, Claudio Abbado and Herbert von Karajan. He recorded Bach's St John Passion with Helmuth Rilling.

In June 2000, Schreier left the opera stage. His last role was Prince Tamino in Die Zauberflöte; he argued that he could no longer act as if he were still a young prince. He ended his singing career on December 22, 2005, combining the roles of evangelist and conductor in a performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio in Prague.

Throughout his career Schreier has been famous as a singer of German Lieder, including the songs of Schubert and Schumann.

Since 1970 Schreier has also been a conductor with a special interest in the works of Mozart, J.S. Bach and Haydn. During his singing career, in the performances of Bach's Oratorios, he would often combine the roles of Evangelist and conductor.

Peter Schreier has lived in Dresden since 1945, in the district of Loschwitz on the right bank of the river Elbe.

Evaluation[link]

Particularly in his later years, Schreier would not be considered to have the most beautiful of tenor voices. Rather, it is the intelligence of his musical expression, as well as the intensity which he projects into the meaning of the text, that have secured his reputation.

For example, the Penguin Guide to Compact Discs says of Schreier's recording of Franz Schubert's Schwanengesang, "Schreier's voice may no longer be beautiful under pressure, but ... the range of tone and the intensity of inflexion over word-meaning makes this one of the most compelling recordings ever." Of his recording of Schubert's Winterreise, the same authors say "this is an intensely involving reading, with changes of mood vividly conveyed, positive, electrifying."

Honours and awards[link]

• Sonning Award (1988; Denmark)
• National First Class Prize of the GDR
• Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of Federal Republic of Germany)
• Ernst von Siemens Music Prize 1988
• Honorary membership of the Musikverein Wien (Vienna Society of Music)
• "Wiener Flötenuhr"
• "Georg Philipp Telemann" Prize
• European Church Music Prize
• Title of Kammersänger (a title conferred to singers of outstanding merit) by the governments of the GDR, Bavaria and Austria
• Honorary citizen of the town of Meissen because of his efforts in fund-raising for the restoration of the town.
• He was awarded the Royal Academy of Music/Kohn Foundation Bach Prize in 2009.^[2]

Book[link]

• The quotation from the Penguin Guide to Compact Discs, by Ivan March, Edward Greenfield, and Robert Layton, is from the 1996 edition, published by Penguin, ISBN 0-14-051367-1.

External links[link]

• Peter Schreier at Allmusic
• Peter Schreier biography on bach-cantatas
• documentary film on DVD about the last year of Peter Schreier as a singer
• Peter Schreier Page the fanpage about Peter Schreier

References[link]

Dinu Lipatti
Dinu Lipatti
Background information
Born	(1917-03-19)19 March 1917 Bucharest, Romania
Died	2 December 1950(1950-12-02) (aged 33) Geneva, Switzerland
Genres	Classical Music
Occupations	Pianist, Composer
Labels	EMI
Associated acts	Member of the Romanian Academy
Notable instruments
piano

Dinu Lipatti (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈdinu liˈpati]; 1 April [O.S. 19 March] 1917 – 2 December 1950) was a Romanian classical pianist and composer whose career was cut short by his death from Hodgkin's disease at age 33. He was elected posthumously to the Romanian Academy.

Biography[link]

Lipatti was born in Bucharest into a musical family: his father was a violinist who had studied with Pablo de Sarasate and Carl Flesch,^[1] his mother a pianist. For his baptism, which occurred not shortly after birth as is usual, but when he was old enough to play the piano, the violinist and composer George Enescu agreed to be his godfather. Lipatti played a minuet by Mozart at his own baptism.^[1] He studied at the Gheorghe Lazăr High School, while undergoing piano and composition studies with Mihail Jora for three years. He then attended the Bucharest Conservatoire, studying under Florica Musicescu, who also taught him privately.^[1] In June 1930, the best pupils at the Conservatoire gave a concert at the Bucharest Opera, and the 13-year old Lipatti received a huge ovation for his performance of the Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor.^[1] In 1932 he won prizes for his compositions: a Piano Sonatina, and a Sonatina for Violin and Piano. That year he also won a Grand Prize for his symphonic suite Les Tziganes.^[1]

He entered the 1933 Vienna International Piano Competition but finished second, because the jury considered him too young. Alfred Cortot, who thought Lipatti should have won, resigned from the jury in protest.^[2] Lipatti subsequently studied in Paris under Cortot, Nadia Boulanger (with whom he recorded some of Brahms's Waltzes Op. 39), Paul Dukas (composition) and Charles Munch (conducting). He gave his first concert, at the École Normale, on 20 May 1935. However, three days before the concert, Paul Dukas died; in memory of Dukas, Lipatti's first piece at his concert, and the piece he first publicly performed as an adult pianist, was J. S. Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring.^[1]

Lipatti's career was interrupted by World War II. Although he continued to give concerts throughout Europe, including Nazi-occupied territories, he eventually fled his native Romania in 1943 and settled with his wife (Madeleine Cantacuzene, also a concert pianist) in Geneva, Switzerland, where he accepted the position as piano professor at the conservatory. It was at this time that the first signs of his illness emerged. At first, doctors were baffled, but in 1947 he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease.^[3] As a result, his public performances became considerably less frequent after the war.

Lipatti gave his final recital, which was recorded, on 16 September 1950 in Besançon, France. Despite severe illness, he gave unmatched performances of Bach's Partita in B flat major, Mozart's A minor Sonata, Schubert's G flat major and E flat major Impromptus, and thirteen of Chopin's Waltzes. He excluded No. 2, which he was too exhausted to play; he offered instead Myra Hess's transcription of Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, the piece with which he had started his professional career as a pianist in 1935. He died less than 3 months later, in Geneva. Lipatti is buried at the cemetery of Chêne-Bourg next to his wife Madeleine, a noted piano teacher.

Repertoire[link]

Lipatti's piano playing was, and is, widely appreciated for the absolute purity of his interpretations, at the service of which he used a masterful pianistic technique. Lipatti is particularly noted for his interpretations of Chopin, Mozart and Bach, but he also made recordings of Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso, Liszt, Enescu, and the Schumann and Grieg piano concertos. His recording of Chopin's Waltzes has remained in print since its release and has long been a favorite of many classical music-lovers.

Lipatti never recorded any music of Beethoven. It is a common misconception, however, that Lipatti did not perform Beethoven's music until late in his career. The Waldstein Sonata had been a feature of Lipatti's repertoire since 1935. He also performed the Emperor Concerto in Bucharest twice during the 1940-41 season, and even stood ready to record it for EMI in 1949. An internal memo from Lipatti's recording producer Walter Legge, dated 23 February 1948, states that "Lipatti ha[d] his heart set on doing a Beethoven Concerto in 1949" and nominates the Emperor Concerto, given that Lipatti had already performed it.

A recording of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, originally released under Lipatti's name, and said to have been a recording of a live performance in Switzerland in May 1948, proved not to be his contribution at all. In 1981, it emerged that the soloist on this recording was in fact a Polish pianist (and a fellow Cortot pupil), Halina Czerny-Stefańska, the joint winner of the 4th International Chopin Piano Competition, playing with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under Václav Smetáček. However, later on, an authentic recording by Lipatti of the Chopin Concerto was found.^[4]

Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Harold C. Schonberg wrote of Lipatti's 1947-48 Chopin concert recordings: "this is piano-playing of a stature that few artists of his generation could have come near approaching".

Legacy[link]

Dinu Lipatti's legacy to new generations of musicians consists of numerous recordings of his concerts worldwide; the power, beauty and sincerity of his recordings continue to inspire and uplift pianists and music lovers.

In recognition of his outstanding contributions to classical music interpretation and composition he was posthumously elected in 1997 as a member of the Romanian Academy.

Compositions[link]

In addition to his pianistic accomplishments, Lipatti was a composer, who wrote in a neoclassical style with French and Romanian influences. His works include:

• Concertino in Classical Style, Op. 3, piano and chamber orchestra (1936)
• Sinfonia Concertante pour deux piano's et orchestre (1938)
• Piano Sonatina for the left hand (1941)
• Rumanian Dances for piano and orchestra (1943)
• Les Tziganes, symphonic suite
• Sonatina for violin and piano

Notable recordings[link]

• 1937 - Brahms, Waltzes, Op. 39, with Nadia Boulanger
• 1943 - Lipatti, Concertino in Classical Style, with Berlin Chamber Orchestra under Hans von Benda
• 1943 - Lipatti, Sonatina for piano left hand
• 1943 - George Enescu, Violin Sonata No 2 in F minor, Op,. 6 (George Enescu, violin)
• 1943 - Enescu - Violin Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 25 "In Romanian Popular Manner" (Enescu, violin)
• 1943 - Enescu - Suite No. 2 in D, Op, 10: Bouree
• 1947 - 2 Scarlatti sonatas; Liszt Sonetto del Petrarca no. 104
• 1947 - Grieg, Piano Concerto in A minor, with Alceo Galliera and the Philharmonia
• 1948 - Schumann, Piano Concerto in A minor, with Herbert von Karajan and the Philharmonia
• 1947/1948 - Frédéric Chopin, Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58; Barcarole in F-sharp minor, Op. 60; Nocturne No. 8 in D-flat major, Op. 27, No. 2
• 1948 - Maurice Ravel Alborado del gracioso
• 1950 - Chopin, Waltzes; Mazurka No. 32 in C-sharp minor, Op. 50, No. 3^[5][6]
• 1950 - Bach Partita No. 1 in B-flat, BWV 825; Mozart Sonata No. 8 in a, K. 310
• 1950 - Mozart Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, K. 467, with Herbert von Karajan and the Orchestre du Festival de Lucerne
• 1950 - Schumann, Piano Concerto in A minor, with Ernest Ansermet and the Suisse Romande Orchestra
• 1950 - Final Recital at Besançon (music of Bach, Mozart, Schubert, and Chopin).

External links[link]

• The Lipatti-Haskil Foundation
• "Lipatti" by Kevin Shihoten
• Lipatti discography
• "Dinu Lipatti - The Last Recital"
• "Dinu Lipatti - Prince of Pianists"
• The Chopin Concerto Scandal

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Anna Lipatti, La Vie du Pianiste Dinu Lipatti, Editions du Vieux Colombier, trans. Giveon Cornfield; quoted on Everest Records LP 3166
2. ^ Jeremy Siepmann, Liner notes for Chopin: 14 Valses, etc, EMI Cat. D114628, 1980
3. ^ Prince of Pianists | Lipatti | Classical Music | Mark Ainley
4. ^ Classics Today.com - Your Online Guide to Classical Music
5. ^ Alexander J. Morin and Harold C. Schonberg (2002). "Frédéric Chopin: Solo Piano Music". Classical Music. Backbeat Books. pp. 225. ISBN 0-87930-638-6. 
6. ^ "Chopin: 14 Waltzes, Barcarolle, Etc / Dinu Lipatti CD". cduniverse.com. CD Universe. http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1106720. Retrieved 24 December 2008. 

Sir John Eliot Gardiner at a rehearsal

Sir John Eliot Gardiner CBE FKC (born 20 April 1943, Fontmell Magna, Dorset, England) is an English conductor. He founded the Monteverdi Choir (1964), the English Baroque Soloists (1975) and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (1989). Gardiner has recorded over 250 albums with these and other musical ensembles, most of which have been published by Deutsche Grammophon and Philips Classics.^[1] Gardiner is most famous for his interpretations of Baroque music on period instruments with the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, but his repertoire and discography are not limited to early music. With the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique Gardiner has performed a wide range of Classical and Romantic music, including many works of Hector Berlioz and all of Beethoven's symphonies. A recording of the third symphony of the latter was used in a dramatisation by the BBC of Beethoven's writing of that symphony.^[2] Gardiner has served as chief conductor of the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra and has appeared as guest conductor with such major orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Vienna Philharmonic.

Career[link]

Gardiner first took up the baton at the age of 15. He was educated at Bryanston School, and studied history and Arabic as an undergraduate at King's College, Cambridge. He toured the Middle East conducting the Oxford and Cambridge Singers. During his time in Cambridge he founded, in 1964, his first musical ensemble, the Monteverdi Choir. With the Monteverdi Choir he made his conducting debut at the Wigmore Hall in London in 1966. To complement the Monteverdi Choir he formed the Monteverdi Orchestra in 1968, who played on modern instruments, but after changing to period instruments in 1977 they became known as the English Baroque Soloists. After graduating from King's College, Cambridge, he studied at King's College London under Thurston Dart, and with the influential French music professor Nadia Boulanger.

In 1969 Gardiner made his debut in the opera house with a performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute at the English National Opera. Four years later, in 1973, he first appeared at Covent Garden conducting Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride. The English Baroque Soloists made their debut with him in the 1977 Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, performing Handel's Acis and Galatea on period instruments. His American debut came in 1979 when he conducted the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. He then became the lead conductor of Canada's CBC Vancouver Orchestra from 1980 to 1983.^[3]

After his period with the CBC Vancouver Orchestra, Gardiner went to France. From 1983 to 1988 he was Music Director of the Opéra National de Lyon. During his period with the Opéra he founded an entirely new orchestra.^[4] During his time with the Opéra National de Lyon Gardiner was also Artistic Director of the Göttingen Handel Festival (1981 until 1990).^[5] In 1989 the Monteverdi Choir had its 25th anniversary, touring the world giving performances of Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610. In 1990, Gardiner formed a new period-instrument orchestra, the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, to perform music of the 19th century. From 1991 until 1994 he was principal conductor of the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra.

From the 1990s onwards he undertook more world tours with his ensembles, including:

• A European tour in 1993 with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique featured Berlioz's rediscovered Messe solennelle. Beginning in Bremen, Germany the tour ended with a recorded performance in Westminster Cathedral, London 1993.^[6][7]
• In 2000, Gardiner set out on his Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, performing, over a 52-week period, all of Bach's sacred cantatas in churches around Europe and the United States.^[8]
• In late 2004, Gardiner toured France and Spain with the Monteverdi Choir performing pieces from the Codex Compostelanus in cathedrals and churches along the Camino de Santiago.^[9]

Honours and awards[link]

Gardiner has received a variety of honours and awards.^[10] In particular:

• Honorary doctorate from the University of Lyon, 1987^[1]
• Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 1990 New Year Honours^[11]
• Honorary Fellow of King's College and the Royal Academy of Music, 1992^[1]
• Grammy, Best Choral Performance, 1994^[12]
• Knight Bachelor, 1998^[13]
• Grammy, Best Opera Recording, 1999^[12]
• Doctorate Honoris Causa in Musicology at the University of Cremona (birthplace of Claudio Monteverdi), 2006^[1]
• Bach Prize of the Royal Academy of Music-Kohn Foundation, 2008^[1]
• Voted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame in 2012^[14]

Family[link]

Gardiner is the son of the British rural revivalist Rolf Gardiner,^[15] and the grandson of the Egyptologist Alan Henderson Gardiner. He was married to violinist Elizabeth Wilcock from 1981 to 1997; they have three daughters. In 2001 he married Isabella de Sabata, granddaughter of conductor Victor de Sabata.^[16] In his spare time, Gardiner runs an organic farm at Springhead^[17] in North Dorset, which was set up by his great uncle, composer Henry Balfour Gardiner.

References[link]

See also[link]

• Soli Deo Gloria (record label), Gardiner's label, the name of which is taken from Bach's signature.

External links[link]

• Monteverdi Productions
• Concordance covering all Bach's vocal works recorded by John Eliot Gardiner
• musicOMH.com: Interview with John Eliot Gardiner
• Goldberg Magazine: Interview with John Eliot Gardiner

Media[link]

• YouTube video of Gardiner directing the opening chorus of the first cantata in J. S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248

Sir John Eliot (11 April 1590 – 27 November 1632) was an English statesman who was serially imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he eventually died, by King Charles I for advocating the rights and privileges of Parliament.

Family and early life[link]

The son of Richard Eliot (1546 - 22 June 1609) and Bridget Carswell (c. 1542 - March 1617), he was born at Cuddenbeak, a farm on his father's Port Eliot estate at St Germans in Cornwall. He was baptised on 20 April at St Germans Church, immediately next to Port Eliot. The Eliot family were an old Devon family that had settled in Cornwall.

John Eliot was educated at Blundell's School, Tiverton, and matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, on 4 December 1607, and, leaving the university after three years, he studied law at one of the Inns of Court. He also spent some months travelling in France, Spain and Italy, in company, for part of the time, with young George Villiers, afterwards 1st Duke of Buckingham.

Parliamentary career[link]

Eliot was only twenty-two when he began his parliamentary career as Member of Parliament for St Germans^[1] in the "Addled Parliament" of 1614. In May 1618, he was knighted, and next year through the patronage of Buckingham he obtained the appointment of Vice-Admiral of Devon, with large powers for the defence and control of the commerce of the county. It was not long before the characteristic energy with which he performed the duties in his office involved him in difficulties. After many attempts, in 1623, he succeeded by a clever but dangerous manoeuvre in entrapping the famous pirate John Nutt, who had for years infested the southern coast, inflicting immense damage upon English commerce. However, the pirate, having a powerful protector at court in Sir George Calvert, the secretary of state, was pardoned; while the Vice-Admiral, upon charges which could not be substantiated, was flung into the Marshalsea prison, and detained there nearly four months.

Marshalsea Notable prisoners Sir Francis Barrington Edmund Bonner · Henry Chettle Richard Cox · Robert Culliford Robert Daborne · John Dickens Thomas Drury · John Eliot John Gerard · Hannah Glasse John Baptist Grano · Nicholas Grimald Charlotte Hayes · William Herle Denzil Holles · Ben Jonson Thomas Malory · Philip Massinger · George Morland · Nicholas Owen Sally Salisbury · John Selden Richard Shelley · Ralph Sherwin Nicholas Udall · Robert Wingfield George Wither Related articles Marshalsea Court Related prisons Borough Compter · Clink Fleet · King's Bench Tower of London Prison reformers James Neild · John Howard James Oglethorpe Related categories Marshalsea This box: view talk edit

A few weeks after his release, Eliot was elected Member of Parliament for Newport^[1] (February 1624). On 27 February, he delivered his first speech, in which he at once revealed his great powers as an orator, demanding boldly that the liberties and privileges of Parliament, repudiated by James I in the former Parliament, should be secured. In the first Parliament of Charles I, in 1625, he urged the enforcement of the laws against the Roman Catholics. Meanwhile he had continued the friend and supporter of Buckingham and greatly approved of the war with Spain.

Buckingham's incompetence, however, and the bad faith with which both he and the King continued to treat the parliament, alienated Eliot. Distrust of his former friend quickly grew in Eliot's mind to a certainty of his criminal ambition. Returned to the parliament of 1626 as Member for St Germans, Eliot found himself, in the absence of other leaders of the opposition whom the King had secured by nominating them sheriffs, the leader of the House. He immediately demanded an inquiry into the recent disaster at Cádiz. On 27 March, he made an open and daring attack upon Buckingham and his administration. He was not intimidated by the King's threatening intervention on 29 March, and persuaded the House to defer the actual grant of the subsidies and to present a remonstrance to the King, declaring its right to examine the conduct of ministers. On 8 May, he was one of the managers who carried Buckingham's impeachment to the Lords and, on 10 May, he delivered the charges against him, comparing him in the course of his speech to Sejanus.

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Speech of Sir John Eliot against Buckingham

Next day, Eliot was sent to the Tower. When the Commons declined to proceed with business as long as Eliot and Sir Dudley Digges (who had been imprisoned with him) were in confinement, they were released, and Parliament was dissolved on 15 June. Eliot was immediately dismissed from his office of Vice-Admiral of Devon, and, in 1627, he was again imprisoned for refusing to pay a forced loan, but liberated shortly before the assembling of the Parliament of 1628, to which he was returned as Member for Cornwall. He joined in the resistance now organized to arbitrary taxation, was foremost in the promotion of the Petition of Right, continued his outspoken censure of Buckingham, and after the latter's assassination in August, led the attack, in the session of 1629, on the ritualists and Arminians.

In February the great question of the right of the King to levy tonnage and poundage came up for discussion. On the King ordering an adjournment of Parliament, the speaker, Sir John Finch, was held down in the chair by Denzil Holles and Benjamin Valentine while Eliot's resolutions against illegal taxation and innovations in religion were read to the House. In consequence, Eliot, with eight other members, was imprisoned on 4 March in the Tower. He refused to answer in his examination, relying on his parliamentary privilege and, on 29 October, was again sent to the Marshalsea. On 26 January, he appeared at the bar of the King's Bench, in front of Lord Chief Justice Sir Nicholas Hyde, with Holles and Valentine, to answer a charge of conspiracy to resist the King's order, and refusing to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court (see R v. Eliot, Hollis and Valentine.) He was fined £2000 and ordered to be imprisoned during the King's pleasure and till he had made submission. This he steadfastly refused. While some of the prisoners appear to have had certain liberty allowed to them, Eliot's confinement in the Tower was made exceptionally severe. Charles's anger had always been directed chiefly against him, not only as his own political antagonist but also as the prosecutor and bitter enemy of Buckingham; "an outlawed man," he described him, "desperate in mind and fortune."

Death and burial[link]

In the spring of 1632, he fell into a decline. In October he petitioned Charles for permission to go into the country, but leave could be obtained only at the price of submission and was finally refused. He died of consumption on 27 November 1632, and was buried at St Peter's Ad Vincula Church within the Tower.

When his son requested permission to move the body to St Germans, Charles refused, saying: "Let Sir John Eliot be buried in the church of that parish where he died." The suspicious manner of Eliot's death, as the result of the King's implacability and severe treatment, had more effect, probably, than any other single incident in embittering and precipitating the dispute between King and parliament. Eliot was a great orator, inspired by enthusiasm and high ideals, which he was able to communicate to his hearers by his eloquence.

In 1668, the House of Lords reversed his conviction, restating the law in Strode's case, affirming that the conviction “...was an illegal judgment, and against the freedom and privilege of Parliament”.

Works[link]

Eliot languished in prison for some time, during which he wrote several works:

• Negotium posterorum, an account of the parliament in 1625;
• The Monarchie of Man, a political treatise;
• De jure majestatis, a Political Treatise of Government, which is in large part a summary of a work by Henning Arnisaeus;^[2]
• An Apology for Socrates, his own defence.

Family[link]

In 1611, Eliot married Radigund or Rhadagund, (c. 1595 - June 1628), daughter of Richard Gedie of Trebursye in Cornwall, by whom he had five sons and four daughters:

1. John Eliot (18 October 1612 - March 1685), who married Honora Norton
2. Richard Eliot (c. 1614 - unknown)
3. Elizabeth Eliot (c. December 1616 - unknown), who married Nathaniel Fiennes
4. Edward Eliot (c. July 1618 - unknown), who married Anna Fortescue
5. Bridget Eliot (c. April 1620 - unknown), who married Peter Fortescue
6. Radigunda Eliot (c. October 1622 - unknown)
7. Susanna Eliot (c. October 1624 - unknown), who married Edward Norton
8. Thomas Eliot (c. September 1626 - unknown)
9. Nicholas Eliot (c. June 1628 - unknown), who married a Miss Prideaux

Peregrine Nicholas Eliot, 10th Earl of St Germans, (b. 1941) is descended from the youngest son, Nicholas.

References[link]

• The Life of Sir J. Eliot, by J Forster (1864)

as supplemented and corrected by

• Gardiner's History of England, vols. v.-vii.,
•  Gardiner, Samuel Rawson (1889). "Eliot, John (1592-1632)". In Leslie Stephen. Dictionary of National Biography. 17. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 
• Eliot's writings, together with his Letter-Book, have been edited by Dr Grosart.
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Eliot, Sir John". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.