Peeters’ largest orchestral work was a forty-minute Organ Concerto; composed during the dark final weeks of 1944 during the bloody Ardennes Offensive (the Battle of the Bulge), it was premiered on Belgian Radio after the Liberation the following year. In 1955 he published an abbreviated arrangement for organ solo of the concerto’s finale, under the title
Concert Piece. It begins with the concerto’s spectacular solo cadenza and ends with the brilliant closing pages, with a quieter interlude in the middle, incorporating some of the more lyrical elements from the longer orchestral version. In the 1930s Peeters had composed a Flemish Rhapsody; he described it as ‘a fresco of the Flemish character: energetic rhythm, decorative form, vigorous substance, colourful registration, strong nature’, and this description could equally well be applied to the concerto.
from notes by David Gammie © 2011
