Liszt Mystic: 
Jos van Immerseel

O wydarzeniu

Jos van Immerseel is not only the heart and soul of Anima Eterna Brugge; he is also a pianist who for years has probed the various incarnations of the instrument since the birth of the pianoforte.

From his impressive personal collection, he has chosen a magnificent Erard piano from 1886, the year of Liszt’s death, to perform an anthology of pieces from different periods but with a common religious and spiritual atmosphere, often imbued with the questions on death that would predominate the composer’s final years. Through the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, the Consolations (inspired by the poems of Sainte‐Beuve), the Odes funèbres, Sursum corda (“Que vos cœurs s’élèvent”, the last piece of Années de pelerinage, in an evocation of the Catholic mass), Liszt reveals his mystic side, constantly questioning the meaning of existence and the vanity of worldly affairs and pleasures that his career as a virtuoso afforded him. Freed of earthly constraints, these musical moments also afforded him the opportunity to explore unknown territory with harmonies that were literally ‘unheard of’, without equal in their day, opening the way for the future of music.

It is through this portal to the infinite and the unknown that the Dijon Opera concludes its series devoted to one of the most diverse and complex European musical celebrities of the 19th century.