Aeolus has recorded the complete organ music of Guy Weitz with Antwerp's cathedral organist Peter Van de Velde

26/11/2015

Aeolus recording engineer Christoph Martin Frommen has recently recorded a new double album dedicated to the complete organ music of the walloon composer Guy Weitz (1883-1970), who lived and worked in London after 1914. Weitz was a pupil of Alexandre Guilmant and Charles-Marie Widor and a contemporary of Joseph Jongen.

This project continues the cooperation between Aeolus and the Antwerp cathedral organist Peter Van de Velde. As Weitz' music does not fill two full CDs Peter Van de Velde also recorded some of Joseph Jongen's major organ pieces, among others the famous "Sonata Eroica".
While the first volume was recorded in April 2014 on the Schyven orgen of Our Lady's Cathedral in Antwerp (last recording before it's restoration), the second volume was recorded last week in the St.Laurentius Church of Antwerp, a colossal building from 1934 in the neo byzantine style with over 7 seconds of reverberation. The organ is from 1935 and was built by the Pels organ building company. The great challenge was to capture the sound of this instrument which is about 30 m large (!) in this very reverberant acoustic. But we have our experience with locations like these...
The double album will be released in May of 2015.

St.Laurentiuskerk, Antwerp