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 Read more
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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Bach: St. John Passion, BWV 245
John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on Mar 4, 2022
Never two without three. With this release on the Deutsche Grammophon label, Sir John Eliot Gardiner offers his third recording of Passion according t ...
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach : St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244
John Eliot Gardiner
Masses, Passions, Requiems - Released by SDG on Mar 3, 2017
5 de DiapasonGramophone AwardGramophone Record of the Month5 Sterne Fono Forum KlassikRecorded live at Pisa Cathedral in 2016, this recording of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244, is of a piece with the touring Bach Cantata Pilgrimage ...
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach : Mass in B Minor, BWV 232
John Eliot Gardiner
Masses, Passions, Requiems - Released by SDG on Nov 6, 2015
4 étoiles Classica5 de DiapasonFor his new recording of this monument to Bach, John Eliot Gardiner is limited to a light chamber orchestra (obviously the English Baroque Soloists, f ...
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bach : Easter Oratorio - Actus tragicus
John Eliot Gardiner
Sacred Oratorios - Released by SDG on Mar 3, 2014
Prise de Son d'Exception5 de DiapasonAfter the completion of the magisterial touring sequence of Bach cantatas from conductor John Eliot Gardiner and his Monteverdi Choir and English Baro ...
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bach : Magnificat - Missa in F Major
John Eliot Gardiner
Masses, Passions, Requiems - Released by SDG on Oct 13, 2017
Le Choix de France MusiqueDiapason d'orGramophone Editor's Choice5 Sterne Fono Forum JazzSo much can be said about this new recording featuring among others − but as the pièce de résistance − Bach’s Magnificat, performed by John Eliot Gard ...
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: St John Passion
John Eliot Gardiner
Choral Music (Choirs) - Released by SDG on Mar 1, 2011
Gramophone Editor's ChoiceJohn Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir, and the English Baroque Soloists come to Bach's St. John Passion after their ambitious traversal of all the ...
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schumann : Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3
John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by LSO Live on Feb 7, 2020
4F de Télérama5 étoiles de ClassicaThe second album in Sir John Eliot Gardiner's Schumann series with the London Symphony Orchestra travels from glorious fanfare to dream-like passages ...
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schumann : Symphonies 2 & 4 - Genoveva (Overture)
John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by LSO Live on Sep 20, 2019
5 de DiapasonOn its face, this 2019 release by John Eliot Gardiner and the London Symphony Orchestra seems fairly straightforward and standard, with an overture at ...
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bach : Brandenburg Concertos
John Eliot Gardiner
Concertos - Released by SDG on Oct 1, 2009
Listeners who like their period performances of the music of J.S. Bach to be played as fast as possible will rejoice at John Eliot Gardiner's quicksil ...
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms, J.: Symphony No. 3 / Gesang Der Parzen / Nanie
John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by SDG on Jan 1, 2009
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Ludwig van Beethoven : Symphonies n° 5 & n° 7
John Eliot Gardiner
Symphonic Music - Released by SDG on Oct 1, 2012
Prise de Son d'Exception5 de DiapasonGramophone Editor's ChoiceJohn Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique were part of the late 20th century vanguard that introduced period performance pra ...
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart : Symphonies 39 & 41
John Eliot Gardiner
Symphonic Music - Released by SDG on Feb 1, 2011
5 de DiapasonAnyone who has followed the career of John Eliot Gardiner knows that he is one of the world's leading authorities on authentic performance practices, ...
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach, J.S.: Cantatas & Sacred Masterpieces
John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by Archiv Produktion on Jan 1, 2010
Deutsche Grammophon/Archiv Productions' 22-disc set of J.S. Bach's sacred choral works isn't a complete traversal of the composer's choral music, but ...
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach : Cantatas BWV 2, 10, 76, 21, 135 (Vol. 2)
John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by SDG on Mar 30, 2010
With the John Eliot Gardiner "Bach Cantata Pilgrimage" series, as issued on Soli Deo Gloria, all recorded during a live tour and gradually parsed out ...
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart : Requiem - Kyrie in D minor
John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on Jan 1, 1987
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach : Cantates (Volume XI) (John Eliot Gardiner - The Monteverdi Choir)
John Eliot Gardiner
Cantatas (sacred) - Released by SDG on Jun 29, 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Scarlatti: Stabat Mater - Campra: Requiem
John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on Jan 24, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem
John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by SDG on Feb 27, 2012
This live 2008 performance of Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem is John Eliot Gardiner's second recording of the piece, the first from 1991, and he uses t ...
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms: Symphony No.1, Schicksalslied, Begrabnisgesang
John Eliot Gardiner
Symphonic Music - Released by SDG on Sep 1, 2008
Many if not most listeners would say that period instruments and historically informed performance practice are fine in their place, but many if not m ...
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Messe Solennelle
John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on Feb 14, 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven : Symphonies Nos. 2 & 8 (Live)
John Eliot Gardiner
Symphonies - Released by SDG on Sep 29, 2014
4 étoiles Classica5 de Diapason5 Sterne Fono Forum KlassikAn early leader in historically informed performances, John Eliot Gardiner was among the first conductors to present the nine symphonies of Ludwig van ...
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo