Immerseel

This very well recorded disc from 2003 is yet another fine disc from Immerseel and his orchestra once more extending his 'period' interests well beyond the Baroque and Classical areas of musical history. In this case Immerseel turns his attention to music by Liszt which he will have been familiar with as solo piano music but which also exists in its orchestral guise supplied by Liszt. These are not transcriptions but are real alternative versions for orchestra. The one exception is the tone poem, From the Cradle to the Grave' which was a late work, never performed during Liszt's life and only available as an orchestral composition.

Jos van Immerseel aime le son ou plutôt les sons… Il est capable de se passionner pour un pianoforte Walter (ca 1795-1800) comme pour les Erard 1897 ou 1904 du disque " Pièces à deux pianos " ou pour un Bechstein, ou Tröndlin… toujours à la recherche de la diversité et du singulier. C'est également cette passion du " sonner juste " qui l'a poussé à créer Anima Eterna, véritable laboratoire des acoustiques du XVIII au XX.

Period-instrument performances of Beethoven's violin sonatas aren't too common; they pose thorny problems of balance even beyond the question of whether Beethoven wouldn't have preferred modern instruments if he could have had them. But this superbly musical set by violinist Midori Seiler, playing an Italian Baroque violin of unknown manufacture, and fortepianist Jos van Immerseel, on a copy of an entirely appropriate Viennese Walter piano, may well redefine the standard for these works. The sonatas were recorded at different times in the late 2000s decade, and some were issued separately, but all were very nicely recorded in the chamber music hall of the Luxembourg Philharmonie, and they are very much a set. The joys of these recordings run across all three discs (the ordering of the sonatas was done merely in order to fit the complete program onto three), and they come from both players as well as from the interaction between the two.

Magdalena Kozena - Mozart Arias
Jos van Immerseel / Orchestra of the Age of Enlightment / Sir Simon Rattle
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 278 MB | Full Artwork: 161 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Archiv Produktion # 00289 477 6272 AH | Country/Year: Germany 2006
Genre: Classical | Style: Viennese School, Opera, Vocal

"If anyone has recorded a lovelier Mozart recital in recent years, I've yet to hear it. In her early thirties, Kozená is now consummate mistress of her art. Her liquid high mezzo, with its easy upward extension, combines warmth with the bloom and freshness of youth, while her coloratura, on display in 'Al desio di chi t'adora' . . . is as brilliant and expressive as Bartoli's, yet without the Italian diva's intrusive aspirates . . . Fortepianist Jos van Immerseel is an equally sympathetic partner in an impassioned yet intimate performance . . ." ~Gramophone

Authentic and authoritative, these 1985 recordings of Mozart and Beethoven's quintets for piano and winds have almost everything going for them. Performing on a pianoforte modeled on a 1790 Viennese instrument, Jos van Immerseel is an adroit player, while the quartet drawn from the period instrument wind band Octophoros – Paul Dombrecht on oboe, Elmar Schmid on clarinet, Piet Dombrecht on horn, and Danny Bond on bassoon – are likewise all skillful instrumentalists. But while their playing is beyond contention – listen to their keen balances, their smooth ensemble, their unified rhythms – their interpretations miss the one thing that defines these works: their sense of fun..

The listener may see the phrase "piano Erard 1905" on the cover of this album of Ravel works and wonder whether the historical performance movement has really gone too far. And truly this is, at least from a modern standpoint, an unusual and even bizarre Ravel recording. It's not so much the Erard piano, which sounds as though it was made to play Fauré and Debussy, but is not so far from other concert grands. What's strange is the general interpretation by Flemish historical keyboardist Jos van Immerseel, known mostly for his performances of music from the eighteenth and perhaps the early nineteenth centuries.

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.

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.