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Berlioz - Symphonie Fanstastique

£13.88

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Label: Zig Zag Territoires

Cat No: ZZT100101

Barcode: 3760009292154

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Orchestral

Release Date: 15th March 2010

Works

Berlioz, Hector

Symphonie fantastique, op.14 H48

Artists

Anima Eterna

Conductor

Jos Van Immerseel

Works

Berlioz, Hector

Symphonie fantastique, op.14 H48

Artists

Anima Eterna

Conductor

Jos Van Immerseel

About

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.

Over long months of preparation, the musicians steeped themselves in Berlioz’s music, his Treatise on instrumentation and his Memoirs, and gradually formed an image of the construction of this masterpiece in which poetry, imagination, lyricism, rhythmic invention and evocative power form the basis of a purely Romantic language of great subtlety.

The choice of period instruments (double basses from the period just after the instrument was modernised, French ‘omnitonic’ clarinets by Müller, ‘ordinary’ flutes from before the invention of the Boehm system, valved horns with crooks to avoid transposition, an ophicleide, an Érard harp, timpani with a central screw played with the sticks specifically called for by Berlioz, two Érard pianos to provide low harmonics in imitation of bells in the Dies irae of the Songe d’une nuit de sabbat), familiarity with Berlioz’s Treatise on instrumentation and Pierre Baillot’s L’Art de jouer du violon (notably with respect to vibrato), and respect for the composer’s dynamics, constitute the principal basis for the sound world of this interpretation, which is at once refined in its Classical style and haunted by the pungent timbres of the brass and of those diabolical clarinets, abyssal bells and rattling death-march timpani.

‘The result may be regarded as surprising and unexpected. Every moment of the performance testifies to the musical and technical mastery of the interpreters and their understanding of the grammar of this music, but also reflects their passion for and fascination with it.’ - Jos van Immerseel