He studied with Dimitri Mitropoulos and Franco Ferrara, and also studied early music and interpretation. In 1959 he formed the chamber orchestra I Solisti Veneti in Padua, and remained associated with it for decades. It quickly achieved a reputation for excellence. In 1975 Scimone took the orchestra for its first appearance at the annual Salzburg Festival in Austria; it was invited back every year. He also led the orchestra on several world tours, appearing in 60 countries. Although the orchestra specializes in early music, Scimone was also instrumental in commissioning works by Cristobal Halffter, Franco Donatoni, Marius Constant, and Sylvano Bussotti, among others.

Meanwhile, Scimone carried on an additional career as one of the most respected of musicologists researching Italian music from the end of the Renaissance through Rossini. He prepared and edited the first modern editions of Tartini's then practically forgotten violin concertos and sonatas, and prepared editions of many Vivaldi operas. One of his most sensational modern premieres was his recording of Vivaldi's Orlando Furioso in 1977, with Marilyn Horne and Victoria de Los Angeles and his live performance of it in 1979 at the Teatro Filharmonico in Verona. He prepared a critical edition of Rossini's Maometto II and made first recordings or premiere modern performances of several Rossini operas. He is the author of an acclaimed treatise on performing practice, -Segno, Significato, Interpretazione.

He recorded for the Erato label, which released over 250 performances under his baton.

In addition to concerts with I Solisti Veneti, he conducted at Covent Garden, the Houston Grand Opera, Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, and the Verona Arena. At the last-named of those, in 1996 he performed the long-forgotten opera Les Danaides by Antonio Salieri.

He has also conducted such leading orchestras as the ORTF Philharmonic, Melbourne, Tokyo, Houston, Montreal, Ottawa, and Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia of London, Yomiuri Nippon Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic of London. He received the Grand Prix du Disque, the Grammy Award, and the Montreux World Disc Prize. ~ Joseph Stevenson, Rovi