John Eliot Gardiner
Conductor John Eliot Gardiner is a leading figure in the historical performance movement, having founded the Monteverdi Choir for performances of Baroque music and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, devoted to music of the 19th century. He is especially noted for performances and recordings of Bach's choral music, and his label, Soli Deo Gloria ("To the Glory of God Only"), takes its name from the small S.D.G. signature Bach affixed to many of his works.
Gardiner was born on April 20, 1943, in the village of Fontmell Magna in England's Dorset County. It is worth notice that for the first part of his musical education, he was largely self-taught: he sang in a village church choir and played the violin. At 15, he took up conducting, and while he was studying history, Arabic, and medieval Spanish at Cambridge, he also began conducting choirs there. He led choirs from Oxford and Cambridge on a Middle Eastern tour while still an undergraduate, and in 1964, he conducted a performance of Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, a work little known at the time. Out of this performance grew the Monteverdi Choir, his primary performing ensemble. Gardiner studied musicology and conducting with Thurston Dart and Nadia Boulanger in the mid-'60s, which was his only period of formal musical study. In 1968, he founded a Monteverdi Orchestra to go with the choir; in the '70s, the group began to use Baroque instruments and was renamed the English Baroque Soloists. With this group and the Monteverdi Choir, Gardiner has made recordings numbering in the hundreds. Mostly during the first part of his career, he also worked with conventional symphony orchestras. His U.S. debut came in 1979 with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and in the '80s and early '90s, he was music director of the CBC Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Opera de Lyon Orchestra, and the North German Radio Orchestra (now the NDR Elbphilharmonie). In 1990, as understanding of the historical instruments used in the music of Beethoven and subsequent composers was just developing, he founded the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, leading it on tour in 1993 with a then recently rediscovered Messe solennelle of Berlioz.
One of Gardiner's most celebrated accomplishments was his Bach Cantata Pilgrimage of 2000, with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists. The group toured for 52 weeks, performing all of Bach's cantatas at their appropriate times in the liturgical year, often in churches with relevance in Bach's own career. The performances were recorded and issued in lavish packaging on Soli Deo Gloria, with essays by Gardiner delving into the meaning of each work. These essays led Gardiner to publish a book, Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven (2013). Gardiner has also recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Philips, and other labels. His Schumann symphony recordings with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique are credited with introducing a trend toward smaller forces in those works. Another major tour came in Spain in 2004, as Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir retraced the medieval Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route and sang medieval Spanish repertory. Gardiner has also appeared as a guest conductor with major symphony orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, and the Cleveland Orchestra. His recording career has not slackened in the least in his senior citizen years, as he has often released a half-dozen recordings per year or more. In 2019, he and the Monteverdi Choir released Love is come again, featuring music from the Springhead Easter Play, a mime event staged annually at Gardiner's family home and originally directed by his mother. He was not slowed much in 2020 by the coronavirus pandemic, for he already had material in the hopper, including a modern-instrument recording of a pair of Schumann symphonies with the London Symphony Orchestra. He returned in 2022 with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in a new recording for the Deutsche Grammophon label of Bach's St. John Passion, BWV 245. Gardiner's many awards include designation as Commander of the British Empire in 1990 and as Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in France in 2011.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Jubilate Deo!
Monteverdi Choir, John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 3 Aug 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gardiner Conducts British Works
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 10 Nov 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gardiner The Christmas Collection
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 4 Dec 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: Falstaff
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 2001
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Leonore; Fidelio
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, John Eliot Gardiner, Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gardiner - Great Symphonies
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 1 Jun 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel : Ballet Music (- Elatus)
English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by Warner Classics International on 1 Jan 1985
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Monteverdi & Gesualdo: Motets & Madrigals
John Eliot Gardiner, Monteverdi Choir
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 1970
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: St. John Passion - Arias & Choruses
English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 1986
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gardiner Conducts German Romantics
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 5 Oct 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Weber: Overture "Euryanthe"
John Eliot Gardiner, London Symphony Orchestra
Classical - Released by LSO Live on 24 Apr 2020
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Purcell: King Arthur (Highlights)
Classical - Released by Warner Classics International on 15 Jan 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Leonore
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by Archiv Produktion on 1 Jan 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Archiv Produktion - John Eliot Gardiner: Easter
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 2 Apr 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Symphonies No. 8 "Unfinished" & No. 9 "The Great"
Classical - Released by Warner Classics International on 1 Jan 1988
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Best of Monteverdi Choir & English Baroque Soloists
Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 1 May 2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Once, As I Remember...
Monteverdi Choir, John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on 1 Jan 1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo