Long-term projects
Visionary projects – the current focus
Haydn 2032
Until 2032, the 300th anniversary of Haydn's birth, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Principal Guest Conductor Giovanni Antonini, will alternate with his own ensemble Il Giardino Armonico to perform all 107 of Joseph Haydn's symphonies in thematically ordered cycles throughout Europe and record them on CD - with authentic instruments, faithful to the original instrumentation and historical tuning of 430 Hz.
Haydn2032 is organised, produced and financed by the Joseph Haydn Foundation Basel. Within the framework of a media partnership with the photo agency Magnum Photos, renowned photographers produce photo series for each project. Contemporary authors also ponder Haydn's significance in our time in the form of short literary visions. The albums are produced in cooperation with Outhere music under the French label ALPHA CLASSICS. Accompanying each project is a limited collector's edition published by the Joseph Haydn Foundation: CD and vinyl record with musicological commentaries, literary essays and photos in luxurious book form.
For Giovanni Antonini, Haydn is a revolutionary, a man of contrasts: the soulful is stirred up, the serious contrasted with the Buffonesque. The scores are peppered with the "unwritten" codes of their time, which Antonini explores and makes audible in their gestures, theatricality and philosophical depth.
The concert programmes are the result of close collaboration between Giovanni Antonini and the musicologist Christan Moritz-Bauer (researcher in charge of the Joseph Haydn Foundation Basel) and PD Dr. Manfred Fuhrmann (scientific editor of the Joseph Haydn Foundation Basel). In a Haydn Night, Haydn's symphonies will be complemented with another work from the period. The reading of a literary essay as well as a Haydn lounge with Giovanni Antonini and a Haydn soup as intermission catering characterise the concert format.
Albums released so far:
Haydn – masses
Starting in the 2024/25 season, one focus of the Basel Chamber Basel Chamber Orchestra on the masses of Joseph Haydn. Under the musical direction of conductor René Jacobs and with the Zürcher Sing-Akademie, Haydn's six late masses and the so called «Cäcilienmesse» will be performed until the 2027/28 season and recorded recorded with authentic instruments, in original instrumentation and historical historical tuning 430 Hz.
René Jacobs, one of the leading specialists in early music, has had a significant influence on historically informed performance practice from baroque to classical music with his innovative interpretations and in-depth studies of works. Jacobs is now returning to Switzerland to continue his long-standing collaboration with the Basel Chamber Orchestra and the Zurich Sing-Akademie, with the composer closest to his heart: Joseph Haydn.
The new long-term project comprises the performance and recording of Haydn's most important masses - masterpieces of sacred music that play a central role in Haydn's oeuvre. Under the direction of Jacobs, two outstanding Swiss ensembles will be brought together and this collaboration will give rise to new accents in the performance practice of Haydn's compositions.
Haydn's “Stabat Mater” was recorded in this constellation at Don Bosco Basel back in 2021. The CD was released in spring 2023 on the Pentatone label.
Season 2024/25
Aboconcert «Mehr Haydn»: No. 8 in C major: 'Missa Cellensis, Mariazellermesse' (H. 22/8) (1782);
Sinfonie Nr. 44 in e-Moll «Trauersinfonie»
Season 2025/26
No. 9 in B-flat major: 'Missa Sancti Bernardi von Offida', also known as the 'Heiligmesse' (H. 22/10) (1796);
No. 10 in C major: 'Missa in tempore belli' ('Mass in Time of War'), also known as the 'Paukenmesse' ('Kettledrum Mass') (H. 22/9) (1796)
Season 2026/27
No. 11 in D minor: 'Missa in Angustiis' ('Mass in Troubled Times'), also known as the 'Nelson Mass' (H. 22/11) (1798);
and No. 12 in B-flat major: 'Theresienmesse' (named for the Maria Theresa of the Two Sicilies) (H. 22/12) (1799)
Season 2027/28
No. 13 in B-flat major: 'Schöpfungsmesse' ('Creation Mass') (H. 22/13) (1801);
No. 14 in B-flat major: 'Harmoniemesse' ('Wind-band Mass') (H. 22/14) (1802)
This project Langzeitprojekt is made possible by:
Joseph Haydn Stiftung Basel
Concertante opera
Concentration on the core, the composed musical drama, focus on listening to what exactly is happening between the voice and the instruments, on musical atmospheres, comments, contradictions and shocks; the orchestra not in the pit, but at eye level with the singers in the concert hall - this intention underlies the idea of concertante opera.
Since 2018, the Basel Chamber Orchestra has conceived several of its own productions of weighty works in this immersive form of performance. The Theater an der Wien, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the Théâtre des Champs Élysées in Paris have been won as permanent co-production partners for the series, as well as the Handel Festival Halle for operas by George Frideric Handel. Castings with top international soloists such as Erwin Schrott, Julia Lezhneva, Klaus Florian Vogt, Xavier Sabata, Sandrine Piau and under the direction of proven specialists promise the highest level and international appeal.
The high artistry of opera - invented as a synthesis of the arts of music, song, theatre and visual art - challenges the recipient with all their senses, is a continuous dance on the volcano that exhausts and overextends its means in all directions: opera is drama, which in its artificiality sensitively resists the dramatic flow, it is vocal art, which defies acting action and naturalness, it is nuanced orchestral playing, whose suggestive power sometimes swamps the composed subtleties. All the more reason, then, to focus on the acoustic, on the fine psychological delineation of characters, on tone-painting landscapes and revealed contradictions in the interplay of voice and orchestra in concert opera.
Mendelssohn cycle
Since the 2022/23 season, the Basel Chamber Orchestra has dedicated itself to the work of the great composer of the 19th century: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. In the coming years, Mendelssohn's great symphonies will be performed, contrasted in concert programmes with works by contemporaries.
The artistic direction of the complete cyclical recording is in the hands of Philippe Herreweghe. For the Basel Chamber Orchestra, it is of special significance to be able to realise this ambitious project on renowned concert stages in Europe together with Herreweghe, one of the very important protagonists of historical performance practice.
The launch took place in December 2022 at the Stadtcasino Basel. Under Philippe Herreweghe's direction, the search for Mendelssohn's sound began. Herreweghe and the orchestra researched together his Third Symphony ("Scottish"), his Piano Concerto No. 1 with Nelson Goerner (soloist) and Fanny Hensel's Overture in C major.
As a proven Bach interpreter of our time, Philippe Herreweghe works with the Basel Chamber Orchestra on the musical connections between the great church musician J. S. Bach and his great admirer Mendelssohn. In the rehearsal process, the ensemble is asking itself how Mendelssohn was probably influenced by Bach in his works and his sound, how he processed them and whether there were common characteristics or even parallels. Due to the background of the orchestra as well as the conductor, both of whom are decidedly concerned with historically informed performance practice, among other things, it is possible to bring together the peculiarities of the playing style of Bach's time with the ideas of the 19th-century composer and thus develop a sound language of their own.
The next concert in this series will take place on 28.10.2023 at the Stadtcasino Basel. The programme includes Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5 ("Reformation Symphony"), Robert Schumann's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D minor and the concert overture "The Naiads" by William Sterndale Bennett.
