Giuliano Carmignola

Giuliano Carmignola is an Italian violinist, conductor, and teacher born (in Treviso, Italy) on July 7, 1951.  He is known for his career as an eminent exponent of Baroque music.  However, his repertoire encompasses works from the early Baroque to late modern.  His repertoire includes the Schumann violin concerto, a piece which has an interesting history.  Nonetheless, his discography is focused on the Baroque.  He first studied with his father.  His later teachers included Luigi Ferro, Nathan Milstein, Franco Gulli, and Henryk Szeryng.  Among the music schools he attended are the Venice Conservatory, the Accademia Chigiana (Siena, Italy – school of Salvatore Accardo, John Williams, and Daniel Barenboim also) and the Geneva Conservatory.  From early in his career, Carmignola has collaborated with many conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Roberto Abbado, Trevor Pinnock, and Christopher Hogwood.  He has regularly played and recorded with various chamber orchestras – the Virtuosi Di Roma (1970-1978), Mozart Orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico, Basel Chamber Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music, and Venice Baroque Orchestra are among them.  A similar path has been taken by Vladimir Spivakov and Fabio Biondi.  Carmignola's best known recordings are probably his complete Mozart concertos, complete Haydn concertos, a number of Pietro Locatelli concertos, the Four Seasons (Vivaldi), and several two-violin concertos by Vivaldi with Viktoria Mullova.  YouTube has many videos of his playing, including one of the Brahms Double concerto.  You can hear one such video (of the Summer portion from the Four Seasons) here – it is played at the fastest tempo I have ever heard.  He spends almost all of his time in Europe and did not make his U.S. debut until 2001 at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York.  Since 2003, he has been an exclusive artist for the Deutsche Gramophone label.  Carmignola has taught at the Advanced Music School in Lucerne (Switzerland) and at his old school, the Accademia Chigiana.  His violins include the Baillot Stradivarius of 1732 and a 1739 violin by Johannes Florenus Guidantus.