César Franck at the Pierre Schyven Organ of Our Lady's Cathedral in Antwerp (Belgium)
01/12/2019
Aeolus produces a new Super Audio CD with Peter Van de Velde. In November the titular organist of the monumental Pierre Schyven organ of the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp recorded transcriptions of César Franck's late works on his instrument.
Aeolus continues the successful collaboration with Peter Van de Velde and will release the artist's tenth album on our label in spring 2020.
Lovers of French late romanticism can look forward to the organ version of Franck's Symphony in D minor (1888) in the transcription by Jan Valach (1925-2019), to the Larghetto from Franck's String Quartet (1890) in the organ version by Hans-André Stamm and to an organ arrangement of the piano piece "Prélude, choral et fugue" (1884) by Henri-Franck Beaupérin.
The Pierre Schyven organ, reinaugurated in 2018, is an ideal instrument for this recording thanks to its numerous orchestral timbres!
Only two days after the beginning of our recordings, the sad news came that the Slovenian composer, conductor and organist Jan Valach, who transcribed the symphony, had died in Antwerp on the evening of November 18, 2019 at the age of 94, while Peter Van de Velde and Aeolus producer Christoph Martin Frommen were simultaneously working on the recording of the first movement of the symphony in the cathedral.
Jan Valach emigrated to Belgium in 1971 and lived in Antwerp most of the time. R.I.P.
Jan Valach (1925 - 2019)
Peter Van de Velde
