Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique

Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique
In 1989, a new orchestra was founded by Sir John Eliot Gardiner to bring to the music of the 19th and early 20th centuries the same stylistic accuracy found with the English Baroque Soloists

One of the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique's outstanding successes has undoubtedly been its acclaimed Berlioz interpretations. This series began with the Symphonie Fantastique, performed and filmed in the former Conservatoire de la Musique in Paris where the very first performance took place in December 1830. In 1993 the orchestra gave the first modern performances of the rediscovered Messe Solennelle, and ten years later the group performed L'enfance du Christ at the Proms and the first complete performances of Les Troyens at the Châtelet in Paris.

The Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique has won plaudits for its complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies, which has been viewed by many as the most important Beethoven recording since the arrival of CD. It has made critically acclaimed recordings of all the Schumann symphonies as well as music by Verdi, Weber and Mendelssohn. In 2003 the Orchestra took part in the making of a highly successful dramatisation of the writing of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony for BBC television.

In 2005 the ORR performed A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Mendelssohn in Holland and Spain and in May 2007, with violinist Viktoria Mullova, they toured Europe with a programme of Brahms's 1st and 2nd Symphonies and his Violin Concerto.
December 2007 saw the start of an exciting collaboration between the Monteverdi and the Théâtre national de l’opéra-comique, Paris: Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducted the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique in eight fully-staged performances of Emmanuel Chabrier's Opera bouffe, L'Etoile and in June 2009 the collaboration continued with a full-staged run of Bizet’s Carmen.

In autumn 2008, with the Monteverdi Choir and John Eliot Gardiner, they concluded the mammoth two-year ‘Brahms: Roots and Memories’ with 12 European concerts of 2 Brahms-based programmes. Later this year they embark on a tour with the Monteverdi Choir and Sir John Eliot Gardiner of Haydn's two great oratorios Die Jahreszeiten and Die Schopfung.

In 2010 they return to the Opéra Comique for a staged production of Debussy's Pélléas et Mélisande in June, which will also include a series of lunchtime chamber music concerts by the orchestra principals. In October they go a on European tour of a Schumann and Brahms programme which will take them to Germany, Italy, Switzerland and France.