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NO.23 __LA CHASSE
Il Giardino Armonico
Dmitry Smirnov, violin
Giovanni Antonini, conductor
Thomas Meyer, writer
Stuart Franklin, photographer
Joseph Haydn: Symphonies No.72, No.41 and No. 73 «La Chasse»
Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto for violin, strings and continuo in B flat Major «La Caccia» op.8 No. 10
Concerts:
10 October 2025, Vienna Musikverein (Tickets)
11 October 2025, Basel Don Bosco (Tickets)
Project no.23 in the Haydn2032 series is related in several respects to Project no.13, named ‘Hornsignal’ and performed in November 2020. First of all, it features Symphony no.72, the first of a total of three D major symphonies from the years 1763-65, for the composition of which Haydn was in the fortunate position of being able to call on a flute player and four horn players, of whom he made intensive use of in all four movements of this work wantonly misdated by Eusebius Mandyczewski’s catalogue. (The other two are no.13, also from 1763, and no.31 ‘Mit dem Hornsignal’ from 1765.) Furthermore, it is joined here by Symphony no.41 in C major, which can be described as a sister work to no.48, nicknamed ‘Maria Theresia’, written a year earlier. The close relationship between the two stems not only from their shared key of C major, but above all from the horn parts, notated in ‘high C’ or ‘C alto’, which are so challenging for the players that, for example, the first of the two horns in the Trio of Hob. I:41’s Menuet has to ‘toil’ all the way up to a''.
The name of this project was ultimately inspired by the last work in the programme, and more specifically its Presto finale. The piece in question is Symphony no.73 ‘La Chasse’ (probably the root cause of Mandyczewski’s confusion), whose fourth movement was originally written as the Overture to the opera La fedeltà premiata (Fidelity rewarded), first performed in 1781. One of the movement’s themes – first heard after a general pause on a chord of the dominant – has been identified as a traditional hunting signal called ‘l’ancienne vue’, which was sounded at the first sight of a stag. (In the opera, it is a symbolic representation of the goddess Diana, who ultimately intervenes as dea ex machina to lift a curse she herself had imposed on the Campanian coastal town of Cuma (Latin: Cumae), situated near the island of Ischia.)
There is also a violin concerto by Antonio Vivaldi called ‘The Hunt’ (‘La Caccia’), which appeared alongside the famous Four Seasons in the collection Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione . . . Opera Ottava published by Michel-Charles Le Cène in Amsterdam in 1725. In Haydn 2032 no.23, the solo part in this work is assigned to Dmitry Smirnov, who has already given a glittering performance of Haydn’s Violin Concerto no.1 in our project no.17, ‘Per il Luigi’.
Program
Joseph Haydn (1732–1809): Symphony No.72 D Major Hob. I:72 (1763?)
Allegro / Andante / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Andante – Presto
SYMPHONY NO.72 D MAJOR HOB. I:72 (1763)
Period of composition: before 1781 [Aug.-Dec. 1763]
Joseph Haydn (1732–1809): Symphony No. 41 C Major Hob. I:41 (1768?)
Allegro con con spirito / Poco Andante / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Presto
SYMPHONY NO.41 IN C MAJOR HOB. I:41 (1767)
Period of composition: 1.2.1767-1770 [1768]
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741): Concerto for violin, strings and basso continuo B flat major «La Caccia» op. 8 No. 10 RV 362 (1725?)
Allegro – [without tempo marking] – Allegro
ANTONIO VIVALDI: CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN, STRINGS AND CONTINUO IN B FLAT MAJOR OP.8 NO.10, RV 362, ‘LA CACCIA’
Time of creation: 1725?
Allegro – [without tempo marking] – Allegro
to the projektto the shop
Joseph Haydn (1732–1809): Symphony No. 73 D-Dur «La Chasse» Hob. I:73 (ca 1781/82?)
Adagio – Allegro / Andante / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio / Finale. Presto
SYMPHONY NO.73 D MAJOR "LA CHASSE" HOB. I:73 (1781)
Period of composition: before 1782 [um 1781]
Line up
Il Giardino Armonico
Dmitry Smirnov, violin
Giovanni Antonini, conductor
Next concerts
Vienna,
Friday, 10 October 2025, 7.30 pm
Vienna Musikverein, Brahms-Saal
Pre-concert talk: 6.30 pm, Steinerner Saal, Horst Hascheck Auditorium
- Advance ticket booking
Tickets are available at musikverein.at or +43 1 505 8190
Basel,
Saturday, 11 October 2025, 7.30 pm
Haydn reading and talk at the Heinz Holliger Auditorium, Don Bosco Basel:
6.15 pm: reading with Thomas Meyer and pre concert talk with Giovanni Antonini (Andrea Scartazzini, moderator)
The reading is sold out. You can register for the waiting list at info@haydn2032.com.
Concert at the Paul Sacher Saal, Don Bosco Basel:
7.30 pm: concert
Haydn soup during the interval.
The concert will be streamed as a premiere on our youtube channel at 19th october 2025 and stays available for 3 months.
- Advance ticket booking
Tickets are available online or at Bider & Tanner, Ihr Kulturhaus in Basel, +41 (0)61 2069996 as well as by phone at kulturticket (+41 900 585 887, CHF 1.20/Min) or on site at all presale locations of kulturticket.
Subscribers of the Basel Chamber Orchestra are entitled to reduced tickets (20%). To receive your promocode please contact info@haydn2032.com.
Biographies
Violin
Dmitry Smirnov
Violin
In recent years Dmitry Smirnov has performed solo works by Haydn, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Nielsen, Bartók, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Bernstein, Lloyd Webber and others with the Philharmonic State Orchestras of Moscow (Vladimir Fedoseyev) and of the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg; the ‘Questa Musica’ chamber orchestra and Baroque orchestra of Moscow; the Minsk Chamber Orchestra; the Festival Strings Lucerne; and the Sinfonieorchester Basel.
He was among the ‘Jeunes Étoiles’ at the 2019 Menuhin Festival Gstaad. In 2021 he made his debuts at the Lucerne Festival and LuganoMusica. Also in 2021, his first CD, featuring works by Bach and Bartók, was released by FHR London.
Dmitry was born into a family of musicians in St Petersburg in 1994 and received his first music lessons from his parents. From 2001 onwards he studied at the special school of the St Petersburg State Conservatory, then at the conservatories of Lausanne (with Pavel Vernikov) and Basel (with Rainer Schmidt). He has taken part in masterclasses with Irvine Arditti, Vadim Gluzman and Gábor Takács-Nagy, among others.
Dmitry Smirnov has won prizes at numerous competitions, including the Oistrakh Violin Competition (First Prize, Moscow 2006), Menuhin Violin Competition (Second Prize, Cardiff 2008), Tibor Varga Violin Competition (First Prize, Sion 2015), Concours International d’Interprétation Musicale (First Prize, Lausanne 2017), Rotary Excellence Prize (Lugano 2017), Concours International Long-Thibaud-Crespin (Third Prize, Critics’ Prize for the best interpretation of contemporary music, and Étienne Vatelot Prize, Paris 2018) and ARD Competition Munich 2021 (Second Prize, GEWA and GENUIN Prize).
Among the prestigious artists with whom he works are Heinz Holliger in the Swiss Chamber Concerts, Giovanni Antonini and Il Giardino Armonico in the Haydn2032 project, and Sol Gabetta at the SOLsberg Festival. In 2018 he founded his own ensemble, Camerata Rhein, in Basel.
He has made debuts at Carnegie Hall in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, Nikkei Hall in Tokyo, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Salzburg Festival, the Mariinsky Concert Hall and the Shostakovich Grand Hall of the St Petersburg Philharmonic.
Dmitry Smirnov plays an instrument by Philipp Bonhoeffer (2018).
Orchestra
Il Giardino Armonico
Orchestra
Founded in 1985 and conducted by Giovanni Antonini, has been established as one of the world’s leading period instrument ensembles, bringing together musicians from Europe’s relevant music institutions. The ensemble’s repertoire mainly focuses on the 17th and 18th century. Depending on the demands of each program, the group consists of three up to thirty musicians.
Il Giardino Armonico is regularly invited to festivals all over the world performing in the most important concert halls, and has received high acclaim for both concerts and opera productions, like Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Vivaldi’s Ottone in Villa Händel’s Agrippina, Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, La Resurrezione and finally Giulio Cesare in Egitto with Cecilia Bartoli during the 2012 edition of the Salzburg Whitsun and Summer Festival.
Beside that, Il Giardino Armonico sustains an intense recording activity. After many years as an exclusive group of Teldec Classics achieving several major awards for its recordings of works by Vivaldi and the other 18th century composers, the group had an exclusive agreement with Decca/ L’Oiseau-Lyre recording Händel’s Concerti Grossi Op. VI and the cantata Il Pianto di Maria with Bernarda Fink.
The group also released on Naïve La Casa del Diavolo, Vivaldi cello Concertos with Christophe Coin, and the opera Ottone in Villa winning the Diapason d’Or in 2011. On the label Onyx Vivaldi violin Concertos with Viktoria Mullova.
In 2009 a new cooperation with Cecilia Bartoli led to the project Sacrificium (Decca), Platinum Album in France and Belgium and prized by the Grammy Award.
Again on Decca Alleluia (March 2013) and Händel in Italy (October 2015) with Julia Lezhneva, acclaimed by public and critics.
The group published Serpent & Fire with Anna Prohaska (Alpha Classics – Outhere music group, 2016) winning the ICMA “baroque vocal” in 2017.
The recording of five Mozart Violin Concertos with Isabel Faust (Harmonia Mundi, 2016) stands as the result of the prestigious cooperation with the great violinist.
Il Giardino Armonico is part of the twenty-year project Haydn2032 for which the Haydn Foundation has been created in Basel to support both the recording project of the complete Haydn Symphonies (Alpha Classic) and a series of concerts in various European cities, with thematic programs focused on this fascinating repertoire. In November 2014 the first album titled La Passione has been published and won the Echo Klassik award in 2015. Il Filosofo, issued in 2015, has been “CHOC of the year” by Classica. The third one Solo e Pensoso has been released in August 2016, and the forth Il Distratto in March 2017.
The last volumes of the Haydn2032 project, as well as Telemann (Alpha Classics, November 2016) are available as CD and LP too. Telemann won the Diapason d’Or in January 2017.
Furthermore the ensemble worked with such acclaimed soloists as Giuliano Carmignola, Sol Gabetta, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Viktoria Mullova, and Giovanni Sollima.
Conductor
Giovanni Antonini
Conductor
Born in Milan, Giovanni studied at the Civica Scuola di Musica and at the Centre de Musique Ancienne in Geneva. He is a founder member of the Baroque ensemble “Il Giardino Armonico”, which he has led since 1989. With this ensemble, he has appeared as conductor and soloist on the recorder and Baroque transverse flute in Europe, United States, Canada, South America, Australia, Japan and Malaysia. He is Artistic Director of Wratislavia Cantans Festival in Poland and Principal Guest Conductor of Mozarteum Orchester and Kammerorchester Basel.
He has performed with many prestigious artists including Cecilia Bartoli, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Giuliano Carmignola, Isabelle Faust, Sol Gabetta, Sumi Jo, Viktoria Mullova, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Emmanuel Pahud and Giovanni Sollima. Renowned for his refined and innovative interpretation of the classical and baroque repertoire, Antonini is also a regular guest with Berliner Philharmoniker, Concertgebouworkest, Tonhalle Orchester, Mozarteum Orchester, Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, London Symphony Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
His opera productions have included Handel’s Giulio Cesare and Bellini’s Norma with Cecilia Bartoli at Salzburg Festival. In 2018 he conducted Orlando at Theater an der Wien and returned to Opernhaus Zurich for Idomeneo. In the 21/22 season he will guest conduct the Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin, Stavanger Symphony, Anima Eterna Bruges and the Symphonieorchester de Bayerischer Rundfunks. He will also direct Cavalieri’s opera Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo for Theatre an der Wien and a ballet production of Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten for Wiener Staatsballett with the Wiener Philharmoniker.
With Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni has recorded numerous CDs of instrumental works by Vivaldi, J.S. Bach (Brandenburg Concertos), Biber and Locke for Teldec. With Naïve he recorded Vivaldi’s opera Ottone in Villa, and, with Il Giardino Armonico for Decca, has recorded Alleluia with Julia Lezhneva and La morte della Ragione, collections of sixteenth and seventeenth century instrumental music. With Kammerorchester Basel he has recorded the complete Beethoven Symphonies for Sony Classical and a disc of flute concertos with Emmanuel Pahud entitled Revolution for Warner Classics. In 2013 he conducted a recording of Bellini’s Norma for Decca in collaboration with Orchestra La Scintilla.
Antonini is artistic director of the Haydn 2032 project, created to realise a vision to record and perform with Il Giardino Armonico and Kammerorchester Basel, the complete symphonies of Joseph Haydn by the 300th anniversary of the composer’s birth. The first 12 volumes have been released on the Alpha Classics label with two further volumes planned for release every year.
Stuart Franklin / Magnum Photos
Biography
Photographer, Magnum Photos
Stuart Franklin
Photographer, Magnum Photos
Stuart Franklin studied painting and drawing under Leonard McComb in Oxford and London, then photography at West Surrey College of Art and Design (BA, 1979). He later studied geography at the University of Oxford (BA, Gibbs Prize, 1997; DPhil, 2000). From 1980–85 he worked with Agence Presse Sygma, covering Lebanon, Sudan, Britain, and the Heysel disaster. Joining Magnum Photos in 1985, he became a full member in 1989, the year he documented Tiananmen Square and shot one of the Tank Man images, earning a World Press Photo Award. He photographed for National Geographic (1991–2009), published Footprint (2008) and Narcissus (2013), and curated “Point of No Return” on Gaza. His book The Documentary Impulse (2016) examines truth and representation in documentary photography. Franklin chaired the 2017 World Press Photo jury and in 2021 won the Medical Journalists’ Association Feature of the Year award for his Covid story in The Sunday Times Magazine.
The text "Des ist einfach Musik" by Thomas Meyer will be published in the vinyl edition vol. 23.
Thomas Meyer will read his text at the Haydn-Lounge in the Heinz Holliger Auditorium on 11 October 2025 at 6.15 pm.
Biography
Writer
Thomas Meyer
Writer
Thomas Meyer was born in Zurich in 1974. He worked as a advertising writer until his debut novel, Wolkenbruch's Wondrous Journey into the Arms of a Shiksa, was published in 2012. The book was nominated for the Swiss Book Prize and sold over 200‘000 copies. It was realised as a film in 2017, with Meyer writing the screenplay himself. The film was the first Swiss production on Netflix. This was followed in 2017 by ‘Trennt euch!’ (Break Up!), an essay that also made the author a break up counsellor.