“My love for baroque music has never been exclusive. Of course I am attracted by period instruments, but that has never been an end in itself. For me, it is simply a matter of always moving further towards the truth, towards a fresh interpretation.” – John Eliot Gardiner

As idiomatic and revelatory in Bach, Handel, Purcell, Rameau and Campra as in Gluck, Berlioz, Offenbach, Chabrier and Massenet, Sir John Eliot Gardiner is a conductor whose passion and curiosity for music seem as inexhaustible as his enterprising spirit. This 64-CD set unites his entire discography for Erato, EMI and Virgin, produced over a period of nearly 20 years. Many of the recordings cast new light on the repertoire, expanding Gardiner’s influence and enhancing his reputation as the guiding force of the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra, English Baroque Soloists, and Orchestre de l’Opéra de Lyon. As the Financial Times has written : “What Gardiner demonstrated … is that stylistic fidelity is a movable feast, and he has not lost his hunger for it.”

John Eliot Gardiner: The Complete Erato Recordings (64 CDs) brings together all recordings the British conductor John Eliot Gardiner (b.1943) made for Erato, EMI and Virgin Classics over the years from 1976 to 1995.

Gardiner was born in 1943 into an illustrious family of British intellectuals and entrepreneurs within which he sang, danced, learned to play violin and viola. He knew very early on that his future lay in conducting, and in particular in choral conducting.

During his studies at King’s College, Cambridge he founded in 1964 the Monteverdi Choir in order to perform the composer’s Vespro della Beata Vergine. Founded early after, the Monteverdi Orchestra developed into the English Baroque Soloists in 1978 when switched from modern to period instruments. In 1989 he founded the Orchestre révolutionnaire et romantique focused on 19th-century repertoire which performed on period instruments too.

In 1967-68 he studied under Nadia Boulanger in Paris and spent time in the Bibliothèque nationale where he discovered Rameau manuscripts, a composer for whom he was fascinated.

In 1982 his performance of Rameau’s Les Boréades at Aix-en-Provence, directed by Jean-Louis Martinoty, was a true international shock.

In 1983 Gardiner was appointed Music Director of the Opéra de Lyon, whose orchestra he founded from scratch and performed landmark versions of French operas: Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, Chabrier’s L’Étoile, Messager’s Fortunio, Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide…

Gardiner has brought deep insight, vitality, flair and visionary commitment to an impressively broad range of repertoire and his interpretations have revitalised appreciation of a huge range of vocal and symphonic repertoire.

These recordings, most of which have been hugely successful, marked out Gardiner internationally as a central and pioneering presence in the field of historically informed performance in the music of Monteverdi, Purcell, Handel, Rameau, Bach – “the greatest who ever lived” – and also Berlioz, Gluck, Massenet, Offenbach, Chabrier, Ravel – Gardiner uses the word sensuality in speaking about French music.

Gardiner has received more Gramophone Awards than any other living artist.

Among the major works are:
- Bach: Motets; Cantatas; Orchestral Suites
- Berlioz: Nuits d’été; Mélodies
- Couperin: Le Parnasse ou L’Apothéose de Corelli
- Handel: Dixit Dominus; The ways of Zion do mourn; Water Music; Israel in Egypt; L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato; Concerti Gorssi op.3; Semele; Ballet Music; Tamerlano
- Monteverdi: Madrigals; L’Orfeo (excerpts)
- Purcell: Music for the Queen Mary; Music for the Chapels Royal; The Tempest; The Indian Queen; Hail! Bright Cecilia; King Arthur; Timon of Athens; Dioclesian
- Rameau: Dardanus, Les Boréades