GRAMMOPHONE October 2010

Berlioz

Symphonie fantastique, Op 14
Le carnaval romain, Op 9

Anima Eterna Brugge / Jos van Immerseel
Zig-Zag Territoires ZZT100101 (65’)

Tripping the light Fantastique in an ‘authentic’ and exciting Symphonie

This new project continues the work of rediscovering the “original” Symphonie fantastique started by the records made since 1988 by Roger Norrington, John Eliot Gardiner and Marc Minkowski. The Brugge ensemble’s choice of old instruments here includes not only the earliest form of “modern” double bass, “omnitonic” clarinets, pre-Boehm-system flutes, valved horns with crooks, ophicleides and an Érard harp, but also timpani with a central screw played with the sticks Berlioz specifically called for and, radically, two Érard pianos to provide low harmonics in imitation of bells for the “Songe d’une nuit du Sabbat”. Jos van Immerseel, although noting that Berlioz in different moods called for instrumental forces for this work ranging from 93 to 220 (including 60 strings, 30 pianos and 30 harps), has opted for the relatively chamber-size forces (45 50) with which the composer was so satisfied in Germany. And he has refreshingly “forgotten” the hectic virtuosity, the pumping up of every animato, which inform many a modern concert-hall performance.

Not that this deliberate lack of applied adrenalin makes the performances any less exciting. The reading of the Carnaval romain is even more radical than the symphony in its deft, unforced lightness, the work emerging as a true companion piece (tribute and parody) of the descriptive stage music of Italian Ottocento composers. The symphony itself is never rushed or grabbed at by van Immerseel and his players. The reduced size of the band and the clean, never over-reverberant acoustic of their recording venue plunges us without neat corners or commas straight into Berlioz’s mixture of Parisian street wind band and later Beethoven recitative and scene-setting. Aptly for an orchestra that has just recorded a Beethoven cycle, the shadow of the Pastoral looms large in van Immerseel’s nearly 16 minute “Scène aux champs”, this timing more accounted for by just observation of the many pause markings than any expressive, romantic slowing. The placing and sound of the timpani are particularly well judged here.

Elsewhere the whole kit of an old-instrument Fantastique – pungent brass timbres, shrieking clarinets, scary “bells” (the pianos) and death-march timpani – makes its mark. For its combination of unique orchestral size and recording quality, and overall Werktreu-ness, this new performance sits easily alongside, maybe even slightly ahead of, the other authentic contenders. Mike Ashman
 

ZZT050502 N.Rimski-Korsakov & A. Borodine

Turok’s Choice, oktober 2005
Paul Turok

Rimsky-Korsakov’s Shéhérazade and Russian Easter Overture and Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia and Polvestian Dances are featured on a fascinating release (ZZT050502). Jos van Immerseel leads his Anima Eterna in very exciting performances, made even more valuable by the small but significant differences between the “period” instruments of the later 19th-century and modern ones. Shéhérazade seems a deeper work than it usually does, because the harmonic underpinnings of the bass lines are audible. Unlike Immerseel’s recording of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth, where the small number of strings did not fully bear the expressive weight of the work, the orchestration here (Borodin’s Dances were in fact orchestrated by Korsakov) puts most of the color and expression in the winds and brasses. These performances highlight the debt of Ravel’s “La Valse” to Borodin’s Third Dance and Stravinsky’s “Petruchka” to the Russian Easter Overture.
 

Ravel: Bolero: Piano Concerto For Left Hand

Release date: 18-9-2006
Number of Discs: 1
Catalogue Number: ZZT060901
Label: ZIGZAG

reviews

Sep 2006

Ravel's Bolero is one of the most famous of all classical works. Here French orchestra Anima Eterna, under the direction of Jos van Immerseel, perform on instruments authentic to the 1928 work, and return to Ravel's insistence that the piece be performed at precisely 66 beats per minute – the published score is incorrectly marked at 72 crotchets per minute. This is not necessarily the Bolero you know.

Lasting almost 17 minutes, rather than the more familiar 13, the result is a revelation that requires the listener to make a certain adjustment. The music takes on a fresh openness and clarity, as well as a slow-building intensity quite different from other contemporary recordings. Likewise, startling new life flows from the virtuoso Concerto For The Left Hand (stunningly performed on a 1905 Erard piano by Claire Chevallier), the dazzling La Valse, the Spanish Rhapsody and the spectral Pavane For A Dead Princess. Immerseel brings an austere beauty to this music, making us appreciate Ravel's brilliance afresh. - HMV Choice

http://www.hmv.co.uk/hmvweb