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alla Home PageBiografie di Artisti (P)
Peeters, Flor
Persichetti,
Vincent
Johann
Christoph Pezel
Anthony
Plog
Flor Peeters (1903 - 1986)
Flor Peeters was born on July 4th, 1903
in Tielen (near Turnhout, in the Antwerp Kempen region) and died
on July 4th, 1986 in Antwerp.
He studied at the Lemmens Institute in Mechelen and received
highest honours: the Prix Lemmens-Tinel, in 1923. He was the
youngest laureate of this distinction in the history of the
school.
In 1923 he was appointed second organist at the cathedral and
second teacher at the Lemmens Institute in Mechelen, both tasks
as assistant for his organ teacher Oscar Depuydt, who, together
with Lodewijk Mortelmans, can be seen as his most important
teacher. After Depuydt died in 1925, Flor Peeters became first
organist at the cathedral and head teacher of organ at the
Lemmens Institute. In 1931 he was appointed teacher of organ at
the Royal Conservatory of Gent and in 1935 teacher of organ and
improvisation at the Roman Catholic College in Tilburg (Netherlands).
He taught at the Lemmens Institute from 1923 to 1952; at the
Conservatory of Gent from 1931 until 1948. In 1948 he became
teacher of organ at the Royal Flemish Conservatory of Music in
Antwerp; from 1952 until 1968 he was also director of the Flemish
Conservatory. He retired in 1968 and was given the assignment of
an International Masterclass in the cathedral of Mechelen by the
Ministry of Flemish Culture. He fulfilled this task until his
death.
Flor Peeters was a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences,
Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium and an honorary member of the
Royal Academy of Music in London. With Olivier Messiaen he was
nominated adviser for the Vatican Council II, but neither of them
was ever consulted.
Flor Peeters was made doctor honoris causa in music by the
Catholic University in Washington (1962) and by the Catholic
University of Louvain (1971).Also in 1971 King Baudouin of the
Belgians gave him the title of baron. A few weeks before his
death he received the State Award for an artistic career from the
Belgian Government.
His first assignment was that of church
organist (1923-1986). He was a genuine liturgical improvisator,
who could skilfully embellish the liturgical action with short
pre- and postludes with rich tone colouring put into short
patterns. He published a Practical Method for the Accompaniment
of Gregorian Chant 1942). Each Sunday after High Mass, between
1968 and 1986, he performed a short recital for friends and
tourists. He kept his large repertoire in good condition and this
playing was a necessity for him
as a mean of communicating beauty to others. After 1978 he could
not undertake any travels due to his deteriorated physical
condition (osteoporosis).
Very early in his career he was attracted to the concert life. He
started in 1924 in Belgium and in 1928 in the Netherlands; in
1929 Denmark followed and in 1934 Germany and Italy; in 1935
Paris. After the Second World War his concert career was widely
extended outside Western Europe: the United States, Great Britain,
the Soviet Union, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and the
Philippines. He gave ca. 1200 organ recitals in churches of all
denominations and in concert halls.
With regard to his concert career he wrote the following:
“The personality of the performing-organist should
manifest itself in a horizontal expression of the music, in a
personal dedication to the intimate ideas of the composer. The
interpreter should be the enthusiastic mediator between the
creator and the public. It is important though to know how far he
can go in his personal approach to the composer he plays. He has
to get all the possibilities out of the organ, so that he can
identify with the instrument. His programme should be in the
organ and the organ in its programme. He has to possess the music
as if he were the composer himself. The starting point of this
entire exiting adventure is a truthful rendering of the written
text down to the last dot...”
Flor Peeters was a prolific composer He wrote
for himself and accepted commissions from publishers. Composing
was a necessity for him. His compositions have influenced his
organ playing and the concert life his compositions. He mainly
composed for his instrument and for choir. His compositions are
characterised by a fluent invention, strongly leaning towards the
Gregorian melos and the modal harmony, a preference for classical
forms, the use of polyrhythm and polytonality and after 1966 also
of atonality and seriality.
The esthetical evolution of his work started as late Franckian
virtuosity, and went via vitalistic neo-classicism, to an
introvert and sober vitality, strongly moving rhythms,
contrasting in colours and with an intense lyricism. The major
seventh and the minor second are the corner stones of his
compositions. His spiritual choir music (a.o. 10 Masses and
numerous motets) is to be seen as a personal assimilation of the
Motu Proprio of Pope Pius IX of 1903. It is adapted to the
possibilities of amateur choirs in the thirties. He also wrote
many songs (Lieder), piano and chamber music, and concerti for
organ and other instruments.
Flor Peeters is author of the largest published chorale work ever
undertaken: opus 100 Hymn Preludes for the Liturgical Year (1959-1964);
it contains no less than 213 chorale preludes on ecumenical
church hymns for the complete Liturgical Year. Raymond Schroyens
will dedicate two lectures to the chorale oeuvre of Flor Peeters.
We will also have a lecture on some important organ works of the
master.
Flor Peeters on composing:
“I do not compose at an instrument, do not improvise to
get in the mood but I write at my desk. A composition grows from
within. When an idea or musical theme has sufficiently ripened in
myself, then inevitably comes the moment that I have to write it
down, where and whenever it may be: at home, on a journey, in a
train, boat, aeroplane. The craftsmanship is very important, but
should be subordinated to the creative process, to the living
invention. When one is dedicated enough to his work, the
invention will come. This invention provides for the living
craftsmanship and both can give the composer the higher spiritual
strength he needs to reach the highest regions of creation...”
Flor Peeters was also a teacher highly in
demand between 1930 and 1980. He has educated hundreds of
organists in his own country and again hundreds during his yearly
master classes in the United States. He published an extensive
organ method Ars Organi (1952) in three volumes and in four
languages, besides the Little Organ Book (1957 with examples
played by himself on his studio organ). He edited various volumes
of Old Netherlands Masters for organ (1938, 1945, and 1948) and
Alte Orgelmusik aus England und Frankreich, Altniederländische
Meister (1958).
He brought the art of the organ to a larger public and published
with others The Organ and its Music in the Netherlands 1500-1800;
this lavish book was also available in Dutch, French and German
versions ( Mercatorfonds Antwerp; 1970); it treated the organ
building (Dr.M.A.Vente), organ music (Flor Peeters) and the
social position of the organist (Piet Visser), all these aspects
put into a broad cultural and historical view (Guido Peeters).
Through its colour pictures, charts, maps and music examples and
with the two LP’s Flor Peeters made to accompany the book,
it remains a unicum in the world of the organ art.).
Flor Peeters was a cultivated man. He spoke and
read four languages fluently. He was a devoted reader of
literature (mostly during holidays) in the Dutch and French
languages (with a preference for G. Simenon and Marnix Gijsen).
He had no special hobbies, except for his daily walks in the park
adjacent to his home. He had several friends amongst his
colleagues of the visual arts, painters and sculptors (A. van
Dyck, Pr. de Troyer, and M. Mendelson, F. de Boeck, J. Minne, R.
Poot).
He found in his partner and wife Marieke Peeters (1901-1981) an
ideal companion in life who advised him daily in all matters of
his career and who raised and educated their three children,
Guido, Lieva and Frieda.Flor Peeters was a very hard worker who
undertook everything very methodically. When at home he studied
on his instrument for more than six hours daily and this until he
reached his eighties. He was physically strong, though already
early in his career (in his fifties) he had to deal with backache,
a common plague for all organists. He later got osteoporosis and
had to cancel travelling and giving concerts abroad. He liked the
good things in life and was no ascet; he liked a good cigar, a
glass of good wine and refined cooking.
Flor Peeters is a characteristic and successful exponent of the
emancipation of the Flemish culture, in search of identity and
recognition, as this took place between the thirties and the
seventies of this century. This culture escaped the narrow bounds
of clerical small-bourgeoisie, from wich Flor Peeters came, to
move with self-assurance and ease in the highest circles and on
the important podia between San Francisco and Moscow, Stockholm
and Cape Town.
Sito ufficiale: www.florpeeters.be
Vincent Persichetti (1915
- 1987)
Vincent Persichetti nacque a Philadelphia il 6
giugno 1915. Cominciò presto a studiare musica, suonando il
pianoforte all'età di cinque anni. Più tardi ebbe lezioni di
Tuba, Contrabbasso, Organo, Teoria e Composizione. Suonava il
pianoforte nelle orchestre locali, accompagnando e alla radio
già all'età di 11 anni. Divenne organista e direttore del coro
della Arch Street Presbyterian Church di Philadelphia all'età di
16 anni rimase in quell'incarico vent'anni. Studiò composizione
al Combs College of Music con Russell King Miller, direzione d'orchestra
al Curtis Institute con Fritz Reiner e pianoforte al Philadelphia
Conservatory of Music con Olga Samaroff. Insegnò teoria e
composizione a Philadelphia e divenne capo del Dipartimento nel
1941. Nel 1947 divenne docente di Composizione alla Julliard
School of Music di New York. Divenne presidente del Dipartimento
nel 1963. È stato anche direttore della casa editrice Elkan-Vogel
dal 1952 alla sua morte. Ha ricevuto molti riconoscimenti, premi
e lauree onorarie e più di settanta commissioni da varie
orchestre e organizzazioni. È stato un compositore prolifico in
un ambito ampio di stili. Le sue composizioni includono nove
sinfonie, dodici sonate per pianoforte, quattro quartetti d'archi,
cantate, il settimino King Lear, Twentieth Century
Harmony, 1961 e Hymns and Responses for the Church Year,
1956.
Johann Christoph Pezel (Glatz
1639 - Bautzen 1694)
Il nome è anche stato scritto come
Pezelius, Betzel, Betzeld, Petzold, Petzel e Bässel. Compositore tedesco. Pezel è ricordato principalmente
per dei brani, scritti per cinque ottoni, che vengono eseguiti
due volte al giorno dalla Torre del Municipio di Lipsia. Una
delle sue pubblicazioni è una collezione di 76 pezzi,
principalmente Intrade ed esempi di varie danze, come Sarabande,
Correnti, Allemande e Gighe. Raggiunse grande fama come
violinista a Lipsia, (dal 1664 al 1681) ma fu anche trombettista,
compositore ed editore di suite e altri brani per archi.
Successivamente ebbe l'incarico di Ratmusiker,
musicista municipale, a Bautzen, lavoro che rappresentava una
carica invidiabile. Fu poi promosso al rango di Stadtpfeifer
(una sorta di araldo, un pubblico ufficiale con mansioni di
maestro delle cerimonie e di rappresentante). Era quindi tenuto a
suonare in tutte le cerimonie ufficiali e alle feste civili e
religiose. Lo Stadtpfeifer doveva
essere un eccellente musicista, capace di suonare sia gli
strumenti ad ottone che gli strumenti ad arco. Scrisse opere
teoriche (Musica politico-pratica, Osservazioni sulla musica) e
molta musica in stile barocco, specialmente per strumenti a fiato,
oltre ad un brano vocale, l'Anno secondo i Vangeli.
Anthony Plog (1947)
Anthony Plog ha avuto una carriera molteplice, come trombettista
d'orchestra, solista, compositore, direttore d'orchestra e
insegnante. Ha ricoperti ruoli in orchestre degli Stati Uniti ed
in Europa, ed è un membro fondatore dei Summit Brass Ensemble.
Ha insegnato in varie istituzioni nel mondo e ha composto
centinaia di brani per ottoni.
Vedi anche www.anthonyplog.com