Flor Peeters: Organ Music / Marcussen

D'Arcy Trinkwon Marcussen, organ (of Tonbridge School Chapel)

Flor Peeters (1903-1986) Concert Piece Op 52a / Suite modale Op 43 / Variationen und Finale über ein altflämisches Lied Op 20 / Nun sei willkommen, Jesus, lieber Herr Op 39 No 3 / Maria sollte nach Bethlehem gehn Op 39 No 5 / Élégie Op 38 / Toccata, fugue et hymne sur Ave maris stella Op 28 / Lied to the Flowers Op 66 No 3 / Lied to the Sun Op 66 No 5

The Flemish composer-organist Flor Peeters was celebrated in his lifetime with a concert career that took him all around Europe, as well as to America, South Africa and Australia, while remaining the organist of St Rombout's Cathedral in Mechelen. He was trained as a Catholic church musician and Gregorian chant and the medieval modes remained a lifelong inspiration for his music.
His mature music is often described as neoclassical, and most of it is essentially polyphonic, with an emphasis on simplicity and clarity, transparent linear textures and pungent, incisive tone-colours. Peeters was an almost exact contemporary of Maurice Duruflé, who shared his love of plainsong and the modes. But where Duruflé, with a typically French sensibility, conjured subtle impressionist soundscapes from his modal language, Peeters preferred sharper contours and brighter colours--Van Gogh, perhaps, compared with Duruflé's Monet.
This disc includes a wide selection of his works for organ, encompassing large-scale concert works as well as some of his many chorale preludes. Peeters' vast and expertly crafted oeuvre--matched in its size and scope only by a handful of other organ composers - displays great contrast and imagination.
'D'Arcy Trinkwon is a master of phrasing and the sensitivity of his artistry gives new life to the great Romantic works... Apart from his great awareness of nuances, it is this gifted musician's mastery of colour that allows him to further illuminate unimagined perspectives in often complex works ... Trinkwon earned enthusiastic applause for his technically immaculate playing and his great virtuosity. His splendid, but nevertheless subtle virtuosity combined with considerable artistic integrity to demonstrate that he is one of the really great artists of his genre' MUNCHENER MERKUR Münich, Germany

Price: $19.98