Il Giardino Armonico & Giovanni Antonini - Haydn: Die Schöpfung - The Sunday Times

Antonini joins forces with the Bavarian Radio Chorus for a gripping account of Haydn’s great 1798 oratorio, The Creation. It is a product of one of the composer’s visits to London, when he was floored by Handel’s English masterpieces. In Antonini’s hands the work sounds very different from the first recording I got to know: Karajan’s with the Berlin Phil and starry opera soloists. Tempi and rhythms are zesty — the jumping tiger has never sounded more agile — and the Bavarian choir and German-speaking soloists give full value to Van Swieten’s translation of the English text. Anna Lucia Richter, Maximilian Schmitt and Florian Boesch have lightish timbres, but tell the story vividly as the Archangels and Adam and Eve. Antonini makes the introductory Representation of Chaos sound avant-garde, as it was at the time.