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NO.25__IL DOLCE FAR NIENTE
Il Giardino Armonico
Giovanni Antonini, conductor
Clemens J. Setz, writer
Peter Marlow, photographer
Joseph Haydn: Symphonies No.21, No.51 and Symphony C major "Symphony for Spain"
Gregor Joseph Werner: From Six Fugues for Quartet: V. [d minor]
Gioachino Rossini: From Six Sonatas a Quartro […]: Sonata Ia G major
Concerts:
Mon, 5. October 2026, Basel, Don Bosco (Tickets)
Fri, 2. October 2026, Locarno, Chiesa San Francesco (Tickets)
Sun, 4. October 2026, Vienna, Musikverein (Tickets)
"High-born Prince of the Empire!
Most gracious and dread Lord!
I am overcome by the gross negligence in the palace Kapelle here [at Eisenstadt], the large and unjustified expenses caused to the Prince, and the slothful idleness of the whole orchestra at present, the main cause of which is the indolent director, who turns a blind eye to all that goes on in order to earn the name of a good-natured Haydn."
The title of this project derives from a letter of complaint that Haydn’s predecessor as Esterházy Kapellmeister, Gregor Joseph Werner, wrote to Prince Nicolaus Esterházy in October 1765. The accusation of "slothful idleness" spurred an immediate reaction: Haydn and his copyist Joseph Elssler began compiling the so-called "Entwurf-Katalog". The intention of this handwritten "draft catalogue" of Haydn’s works was certainly to convince Prince Nicolaus once and for all that his vice-Kapellmeister and the court orchestra he directed had other things in mind than indulging in the proverbial art of dolce far niente (sweet idleness).
While the amiable Symphony no.21, included in our programme, dates from almost exactly the same time as Werner’s critique of Haydn’s "indolence", Symphony no.51, with its unusually difficult horn parts, is quite definitely anything but "sweet" for the musicians. It is true, though, that in the so-called "Symphony for Spain", the maestro did indeed take the easy way out. For this work, which was only admitted to the canon of Haydn’s symphonies in 2013, consists entirely of music already in existence at the time of its composition, even though it was specially put together for the occasion. The symphony is thought to have been commissioned by a Spanish prince or princess.
Program
Joseph Haydn (1732–1809): Symphony No.21 A Major Hob. I:21 (1764)
Adagio / Presto / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Allegro molto
SMYPHONY NO.21 A MAJOR HOB. I:21 (1764)
Period of composition: [2nd half?] 1764
Gregor Joseph Werner (1693–1766): from VI Fugues for quartets […] by G. J. Werner, late Kapellmeister to His Serene Highness Prince Nicolaus Esterházy, etc., etc. Out of special respect for this famous master, now published by his successor, J. Haydn […] Vienna: Artaria & Comp. [1804]:
V. [D minor] Adagio ma poco / Allegro / Adagio
Joseph Haydn: Symphony No.51 B flat Major Hob. I:51 (1773)
Vivace / Adagio / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Allegro
SYMPHONY NO.51 B FLAT MAJOR HOB. I:51 (1773)
Period of composition: before 1774 [Spring 1773]
Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868): from Six Sonatas a quattro […] Ravenna 1804: Sonata Ia G Major
Moderato / Andante / Allegro
Joseph Haydn: Symphony C Major Hob. deest (1773/1774) "Symphony for Spain"
Allegro / Poco adagio / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio / Finale. Prestissimo
JOSEPH HAYDN: SYMPHONY IN C MAJOR HOB. DEEST (1773/1774), "SYMPHONY FOR SPAIN"
Period of composition: 1773-1782 [1773/1774?]
Line up
Il Giardino Armonico
Giovanni Antonini, conductor
Next Concerts
Basel,
Monday, 5 October 2026, 7.30 pm
Haydn reading at the Heinz Holliger Auditorium
6.30 pm reading with Clemens J. Setz (Alain Claude Sulzer, moderation)
Seating is limited to 50 guests. Admission is granted only with prior registration at info@haydn2032.com and upon presentation of a valid concert ticket.
Concert at the Paul Sacher Saal
7.30 pm: concert
Haydn soup during the interval
The concert will also be broadcast at a later date as a premiere on our YouTube-channel and will remain available for three months.
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Advance ticket sales
Tickets are available here online or at Bider & Tanner, your cultural bookstore in Basel (+41 (0)61 206 99 96), as well as by phone via kulturticket (+41 900 585 887, CHF 1.20/min) or in person at all other kulturticket advance sales outlets.
Subscribers of the Kammerorchester Basel receive a 20% discount (please contact info@haydn2032.com for this).
Vienna,
Sunday, 4 October 2026, 7.30 pm
Musikverein Wien, Brahms-Saal
Pre concert talk: 6.30 pm, Brahms-Saal
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Advance ticket sales
Tickets are available at musikverein.at
Locarno, Friday, 2 October, 7.30 pm
Chiesa San Francesco, Locarno
Pre concert talk: 6.45 pm, Aula SUPSI, Locarno: Introduzione – Konzerteinführung, Davide Fersini (Musician & music journalist RSI) – language: italian (german on demand)
Abweichendes Programm:
Sol Gabetta, violoncello
Il Giardino Armonico
Giovanni Antonini, conductor
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Symphony No.21 A Major Hob. I:21
Concerto for violoncello No.1 C Major Hob. VIIb:1
Interval
Symphony C Major Hob. deest "Symphony for Spain"
Symphony No.51 B flat Major Hob. I:51
Duration: 100 minutes (inclusive interval)
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Advance ticket sales
Tickets are available online at classicAscona
Biographies
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.
Peter Marlow / Magnum Photos
Biography
Photographer, Magnum Photos
Peter Marlow
Photographer, Magnum Photos
Although gifted in the language of photojournalism, Peter Marlow (B. 1952, d. 2016) was not a photojournalist. He was initially, however, one of the most enterprising and successful young British news photographers, and in 1976 joined the Sygma agency in Paris. He soon found that he lacked the necessary appetite for the job while on assignment in Lebanon and Northern Ireland during the late 1970s; he discovered that the stereotype of the concerned photojournalist disguised the disheartening reality of dog-eat-dog competition between photographers hunting fame at all costs.
After those days, Marlow’s aesthetic shifted – in that he made mainly color photographs – but his approach was unchanged. The color of incidental things became central to his pictures in the same way that the shape and mark of things had been central to his black-and-white work.
Marlow had come full circle. He started his career as an international photojournalist, returned to Britain to examine his own experience, and discovered a new visual poetry that enabled him to understand his homeland. Having found this poetry, he took it back on the road: he photographed as much in Japan, the USA and elsewhere in Europe as he did in the UK.
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«Über Joseph Haydn existieren viele kuriose Anekdoten. So wird etwa berichtet, der Komponist habe eines Tages den “Vater der modernen Chirurgie” John Hunter aufgesucht, um sich von ihm chronische Nasenpolypen operativ entfernen zu lassen, sei aber kurz vor der Behandlung in Panik geraten und geflohen. Außerdem wird behauptet, Haydns Ehefrau Anna sei das Geschäft ihres Mannes so vollkommen fremd gewesen, dass sie seine Manuskripte regelmäßig für das Einwickeln von Einkäufen verwendet habe. Und ich meine auch, einmal gelesen zu haben, dass Haydns gepuderte Perücke bei mehreren Gelegenheiten aus Versehen in Brand geriet.»
Auszug aus dem Text von Clemens J. Setz
Clemens J. Setz liest seinen für Haydn2032 geschriebenen Text bei der Haydn-Lesung im Heinz Holliger Auditorium, Don Bosco Basel am 5. Oktober 2026 um 18.30 Uhr.
Der Text «Im Brustton der Luigia» von Clemens J. Setz wird in der Schallplatten-Edition Vol. 25 erscheinen.
Biography
Writer
Clemens J. Setz
Writer
Clemens J. Setz was born in Graz in 1982 and studied mathematics and German literature. He now lives and works in Vienna as a translator and freelance writer. His literary work has received numerous awards, including the Georg Büchner Prize in 2021 and the Austrian Book Prize in 2023 for his novel Monde vor der Landung. His most recent publications include Das All im eignen Fell: Eine kurze Geschichte der Twitterpoesie (Suhrkamp, 2024) and Das Buch zum Film (Jung und Jung, 2025).