Schubert Immerseel Chevallier

Pourquoi Rachmaninoff est-il devenu une légende? Comment a-t-il pu symboliser la perfection technique pour des générations entières de pianistes? Façade roucoulante d'une carrière médiatique au cours de sa vie américaine ? Intime personnalité développée de sa Russie natale?

Jos van Immerseel and Claire Chevallier have enjoyed a close collaboration for many years now. Like Jos van Immerseel, Claire Chevallier loves period pianos; like him, she is a researcher and possesses her own collection of keyboard instruments.

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.

Schubert's quintet (which gets its name from his song "The Trout," used for a set of variations at its apex) is as lighthearted as it is melodious, qualities reflected in this excellent performance. The period-instrument balances are ideal; the fortepiano, less resonant than a modern piano, does not overpower the strings. The arpeggione was an odd, newly invented six-stringed instrument when Schubert wrote for it. The lovely sonata is here played on an obsolete five-stringed instrument, the violoncello piccolo–closer to the original than the modern cello or viola usually heard on recordings. The "Notturno" is a haunting movement, probably intended for a larger work.

Jos van Immerseel: “While since its foundation in 1987 Anima Eterna Brugge has grown organically into a symphonic orchestra, chamber music once again forms an important part of our repertory today. We will continue our journey through orchestral music, but want to broaden our base by including chamber music as well.”

The disc, well recorded in 1987, is a very good performance of both the symphony and the overture. The symphony makes use of corrections made by studying the manuscript scores specially for this set of recordings. Only the first three symphonies had previously been checked in this way. In reality the differences are relatively small and concern various accenting marks and a few inserted bars. The most interesting potentially is the time signature for the slow movement which Schubert had marked as 2/2 time rather than the printed 4/4 time. This implies a faster pace with two bats per bar rather than four.

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.

These performances of the Beethoven symphonies and overtures seek to perform these masterpieces employing the same instrumentation, acoustics and timing that Beethoven heard (when he could) and used. Thus we are placed in hearing this music the way its composer wanted us to hear it.

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.