Giovanni Antonini

Giovanni Antonini (born 1965) is an Italian conductor and soloist on the recorder and baroque transverse flute. He studied in his native Milan, and attended the Civica Scuola di Musica in that city and the Centre de Musique Ancienne in Geneva. In 1985, along with Luca Pianca, he co-founded Il Giardino Armonico, a pioneering Italian early-music ensemble based in Milan.

Antonini is regarded as one of the leaders of the Italian period instruments movement, and has performed with many distinguished artists including Christoph Prégardien, Christophe Coin, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Viktoria Mullova and Giuliano Carmignola. He has toured worldwide and has received numerous awards for his achievements, including, with Il Giardino Armonico, the Gramophone Award, Diapason d’Or, and Choc du Monde de la Musique.

In 2014, Antonini and Il Giardino Armonico commenced a project aiming to perform and record all of Joseph Haydn's symphonies by 2032, the 300th anniversary of the composer's birth.

Il Giardino Armonico

Il Giardino Armonico ("The Garden of Harmony") is a pioneering Italian early music ensemble founded in Milan in 1985 by Luca Pianca and Giovanni Antonini, primarily to play 17th- and 18th-century music on period instruments.

Il Giardino Armonico performs with soloists such as the mezzosoprano Cecilia Bartoli, duo pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque, cellist Christophe Coin, and soprano Danielle de Niese. Its recordings have met with honors including the Gramophone and Grammy Awards. Il Giardino Armonico performs both in concerts and in opera stage productions of works such as by Monteverdi, Handel, Pergolesi and Vivaldi. In 2014, the ensemble commenced a project aiming to perform and record all of Joseph Haydn's symphonies by 2032, the 300th anniversary of the composer's birth.

References

External links

Media related to Il Giardino Armonico at Wikimedia Commons

Joseph Haydn

(Franz) Joseph Haydn (/ˈdʒoʊzəf ˈhaɪdən/; German: [ˈjoːzɛf ˈhaɪdən]; 31 March 1732 – 31 May 1809) was a prominent and prolific Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the piano trio and his contributions to musical form have earned him the epithets "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet".

Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family at their remote estate. Until the later part of his life, this isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he was, as he put it, "forced to become original". Yet his music circulated widely and for much of his career he was the most celebrated composer in Europe.

Joseph Haydn was the older brother of composer Michael Haydn, a friend and mentor of Mozart, and a teacher of Beethoven.

Biography

Early life

Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Austria, a village that at that time stood on the border with Hungary. His father was Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright who also served as "Marktrichter", an office akin to village mayor. Haydn's mother Maria, née Koller, had previously worked as a cook in the palace of Count Harrach, the presiding aristocrat of Rohrau. Neither parent could read music; however, Mathias was an enthusiastic folk musician, who during the journeyman period of his career had taught himself to play the harp. According to Haydn's later reminiscences, his childhood family was extremely musical, and frequently sang together and with their neighbors.

Symphony No. 60 (Haydn)

The Symphony No. 60 in C major, Hoboken I/60, was written by Joseph Haydn. It is sometimes given the nickname Il Distratto (The Distracted), or in German, Der Zerstreute.

Nickname

It was completed in or by 1775 (most likely November 1774). The symphony makes use of music Haydn wrote for a play, Le Distrait, by Jean-François Regnard, given a German revival in 1774 by Karl Wahr under the German title Der Zerstreute (Il Distratto is the title that appears on Haydn's incidental music, however). Symphony no. 60 contains the overture, four entr'actes and finale from the music composed for the five-act play.

Movements

The symphony is scored for two oboes, two horns, two optional trumpets, timpani, and strings.

The slow introduction to the first movement overture opens with a fanfare similar to the one that opens the 50th symphony which also served an overture to a stage work. The ensuing Allegro is in sonata form. The second theme has a section that is notably marked perdendosi ("dying away") which Sisman associates with the absent-mindedness of the main character of the play. In the development section, the falling arpeggio motif that opens the Farewell Symphony is quoted and repeated at different pitch levels.

Giovanni

Giovanni may refer to:

See also