The John Eliot Gardiner Collection [30 CD Box Set][Limited Edition]

Gardiner has brought deep insight, vitality, flair and visionary commitment to an impressively broad range of repertoire ... his advocacy fuses intellectual rigour and incandescent imagination.
Robert Levin

30-CD LIMITED EDITION
One of the great advocates of period-instrument performance but not, he insists a period- instrument specialist (The vital thing is to combine a knowledge of the sound world in which a composer was writing with a sense of how that music can speak to us now) he has received more Gramophone awards than any other living artist ... and now Sir John Eliot Gardiner is reaching the ripe old age of 70 without any signs of letting up on his almost frenetic life in music.

He was most enthusiastic when approached by DGs president Mark Wilkinson about choosing his favourite recordings from his Universal Music catalogue, on the Archiv, Deutsche Grammophon and Philips labels, going back to the late 1970s, to mark the occasion. He came up with a challenging list of classics, ranging from Monteverdi to Stravinsky, taking in the Baroque Greats, the Viennese Classics, the Romantics and modern composers most dear to his heart. Its an overwhelmingly vocal collection, a sequence of highly dramatic musical works that faithfully reflects Gardiners musical ideals and predilections.

Sung texts and translations will be available as a digital download.
The 30-CD box, in the packaging-style of the Messiaen Edition of 2008, presents the recordings in their original jackets, the 108-page booklet includes an extended interview-article (2,500 words) with Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, Principal of the Royal Academy of Music in London, recording producer and trumpet-player. As ever with Gardiner, this provides a stimulating account of his life and music, and we plan to make the full interview, conducted earlier this year, available on the special website we are preparing for the occasion.

The birthday itself falls on 20 April 2013. Around it will be a marathon concert in Londons Royal Albert Hall, consisting of all the Bach Passions and Oratorios performed in a single day. Gardiner is also publishing a book on Bach, and there will be TV appearances as well (The Andrew Marr Show).

Tracklisting
THE JOHN ELIOT GARDINER COLLECTION
from Monteverdi to Stravinsky
30 CDs

CD 1 2
Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Vergine
Soloists / Monteverdi Choir / English Baroque Soloists

CD 3 4
Purcell: The Fairy Queen
Monteverdi Choir / English Baroque Soloists

CD 5 7
J. S. Bach: St. Matthew Passion
Soloists / Monteverdi Choir / English Baroque Soloists

CD 8 10
Handel: Jephtha
Soloists / Monteverdi Choir / English Baroque Soloists

CD 11 12
Gluck: Iphigenie en Tauride
Soloists / Monteverdi Choir / English Baroque Soloists

CD 13 15
Mozart: Idomeneo
Soloists / Monteverdi Choir / English Baroque Soloists

CD 16
Piano Concertos Nos. 20 & 21
Malcolm Bilson / English Baroque Soloists

CD 17 18
Haydn: Die Jahreszeiten
Soloists / Monteverdi Choir / English Baroque Soloists

CD 19 20
Beethoven: Leonore
Soloists / Monteverdi Choir / Orchestre R©volutionnaire et Romantique

CD 21
Beethoven: Missa solemnis
Soloists / Monteverdi Choir / Orchestre R©volutionnaire et Romantique

CD 22
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique
Monteverdi Choir / Orchestre R©volutionnaire et Romantique

CD 23 24
Schumann: Requiem fr Mignon, Nachtlied, Das Paradies und die Peri
Symphony no. 4 in D minor (original version, 1841)
Soloists / Monteverdi Choir / Orchestre R©volutionnaire et Romantique

CD 25
Lehar: Die lustige Witwe
Soloists / Monteverdi Choir / Wien