Anima Majid

After exploring the universe of Ravel, Anima Eterna continues its voyage of discovery through twentieth-century French music with Francis Poulenc. In Jos van Immerseel’s view, Poulenc is one of the most significant personalities of the twentieth century, coupling immense erudition with surprising spontaneity. Not to mention the fact that Poulenc was also a particularly brilliant pianist.

As with most of Haydn’s masses, the Missa Cellensis is more well known by its alias,“Cäcilienmesse” (Cecilia Mass), rather than by its original name. Joseph Haydn began work on the mass in 1766, when he assumed the position as Music Director for the princely Court of Esterházy. With its unusually large orchestra and a duration of almost one hour, this composition is the longest and most extensive of Haydn’s masses. Haydn followed the traditional structure by setting the parts of the Ordinary in individual movements, in which the text is interpreted through the use of variety and contrast in scoring and compositional technique. For quite some time now, Jos van Immerseel and his Ensemble Anima Eterna have enjoyed an outstanding reputation for presenting their unique and special type of historical performance practice: For the present recording they employed Vienna wind instruments and the string instruments are modeled on instruments from the Viennese classical period.

In the course of the 1996-97 season, Anima Eterna played and recorded Schubert's complete symphonies in the particularly innovative interpretation of their conductor, Jos van Immerseel. This interpretation, based on the study of Schubert's manuscripts and on the instruments used at the time of their first performance, allows us to discover sound colours that combine freshness and profundity.

This monumental work of French Romanticism is one of the essential landmarks in the career of any conductor. The quality of Berlioz’s orchestration and questions of timbre and the ideal instrumental forces lie at the core of the approach of Jos van Immerseel and Anima Eterna Brugge, who are increasingly drawn to French composers and especially to their precise, shimmering orchestral textures.

The music of Johann Strauss reflects a lifestyle, a refinement … a true Viennese tradition. At the same time, this music simply creates joie de vivre, an almost uncontrollable urge to dance. It is these feelings and these emotions Anima Eterna and its leader, Jos van Immerseel communicate with delicacy and conviction; also with a view to the greatest possible proximity to the score as it was conceived at the time of its creation.

Giovanni Mossi and Antonio Montanari, two of the most esteemed violin virtuosi of eighteenth-century Rome, can finally take centre stage, away from the crowded panorama of Corelli's pupils and imitators; their works can be fully appreciated in this new recording devoted to their sonatas for violin. Three sonatas by Mossi for violin and continuo from his op. 5 and op. 6 are presented here; these collections remain lesser-known and lesser-recorded even today. The three violin sonatas by Montanari that the celebrated virtuoso Johann Pisendel brought from Rome to Dresden in 1717, after having taken lessons from Montanari himself, are recorded here together for the first time.

Often described as ‘music for amateurs’, sometimes used (or misused) towards purely commercial ends, Orff’s Carmina Burana was clearly ready for a new approach, a sort of revivifying, thorough rethinking. This has now been done, thanks to Jos van Immerseel and the absolutely exceptional musical team that he assembled.