Ravel: Bolero / Immerseel

Bolero, Concerto for the left hand, Rhapsodie espagnole, Pavane pour une infante defunte Anima Eterna, Jos van Immerseel Claire Chevallier, piano "Ravel on period instrument brings results of striking clarity…. this is the perfect showcase for period instruments from the early 20th century. With Claire Chevalier a most sensitive soloist, very French in style, the piano is more clearly defined over the highly original, generally low-lying orchestration, growling up from nowhere at the start."- Gramophone October 2006 - Edward Greenfield

Ravel is as far removed in time from us as Mozart was from Tchaikovsky: Jos van Immerseel assimilates this fact to achieve the distance necessary to situate Ravel in his own era

After Strauss, Brahms and Tchaikovsky, followed by Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin by way of Liszt, Anima Eterna now tackles the twentieth century. The projects centring on the music of Tchaikovsky and Liszt, especially, have already caused listeners to exclaim: ‘It almost sounds like Ravel!’

So Ravel marks the next step for Anima Eterna: to rediscover the highly characteristic timbres of the period 1900-1940 in France, with the aid of genuine French rather than standard American instruments. The distance in time between Ravel’s era and our own is now the same as that separating Mozart from Tchaikovsky.

The musicians of the orchestra are specialists. They show their passion for their instruments in their outstanding virtuosity, but also, very often, by building private collections of historical instruments. Claire Chevallier plays the Concerto for the left hand on an Erard of 1905. Each wind player has sought out the appropriate French instrument - one of the bassoonists reconstructed his instrument specially for this project. Midori Seiler asked the violinists to use a plain gut D string. The celesta is a historical model built by the firm of Hustel in 1920.

This is the last project of Anima Eterna before the complete symphonies of Beethoven which will be released in 2008! As you can see on their concerts’agenda, many Beethoven concerts are scheduled to prepare this big event.