Seeking Haydn Adrian Horsewood speaks to Giovanni Antonini about his 18year project to perform and record each of Haydn’s 107 symphonies
© Kemal Mehmet Girgin
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any conductors, quite reasonably, hold the day of a performance sacred and shun any outside intrusion until after the final chord has died away; not so Giovanni Antonini, who professes himself delighted to meet on one such day to talk about his ongoing project to record all of Joseph Haydn’s symphonies – so much so that he almost needs to be reminded to eat a quick lunch before launching into the final rehearsal for that evening’s concert. Antonini is the artistic figurehead for Haydn2032, an ambitious undertaking – one that spans performance, recording, musicology, photography, and literature – that was launched back in 2014 and is due to finish in 2032, to coincide with the 300th anniversary of the composer’s
birth. Supported by a newly-created foundation in Basel, the Joseph Haydn Stiftung, Antonini and two orchestras with which he has close ties – the Italian Il Giardino Armonico and the Swiss Kammerorchester Basel – will perform and commit to disc each of Haydn’s 107 symphonies (that figure only recently revised up from the previously canonical 104). “We are almost one third of the way through,” notes Antonini, “having done at least two projects a year since we started. The structure is very similar each time: we have four concerts, and in between we have recording sessions.” He is keen to emphasise the collective approach of the project: “It’s a great opportunity, because thanks to the Foundation in Basel, which gives support in a very generous way, we have the right resources and atmosphere to plan,
Summer 2019 The Green Room 9
