Ottavio plus

In this anniversary year, Ottavio Dantone invites his friend and long-time collaborator, the audience favourite and star flautist Giovanni Antonini, to join him on a journey back to the origins of the Innsbrucker Festwochen. The evening, featuring two masters of historically informed performance practice, takes as its point of departure a landmark concert given by early music legends Gustav Leonhardt and Frans Brüggen on 23 August 1981, performed with precisely the same instrumental line-up in the Riesensaal of the Hofburg.

By reviving parts of that 1981 programme for the 50th edition of the Innsbrucker Festwochen, Dantone and Antonini pay tribute to two towering figures from the festival’s early history. Their musical partnership also embodies the artistic breadth that Leonhardt and Brüggen championed from the outset: the rediscovery, cultivation, and continual reimagining of early music.

Yet an anniversary is never only a matter of retrospection. Alongside excerpts from the original programme, works by Bach and other composers will be performed, creating a living dialogue between past and present interpretative traditions. In 2026, Ottavio Dantone thus bridges the festival’s beginnings with its contemporary incarnation, demonstrating how vibrantly the tradition endures after half a century.