Flor Peeters

Flor Peeters was a Belgian organist, composer, and educator of the 20th century. He was also a respected scholar of early Flemish music and the author of several pedagogical texts. Peeters was born in 1903 in the Belgian village of Tielen, which is located near the border with the Netherlands. He was the youngest of nine children, and he probably received his earliest musical instruction from his father, who was the village organist. One of his older brothers was also a church organist, and Peeters gained valuable experience as a boy working as a substitute for both his brother and his father. He enrolled at the Lemmens Institute in Mechelen in 1919, where he studied organ with Oscar Depuydt, composition with Lodewijk Mortelmans, and Gregorian chant with Jules van Nuffel. Peeters was a brilliant student, and he finished the eight-year church music program in just four years. After his graduation in 1923, he was simultaneously appointed organ professor at the Lemmens Institute and assistant organist under Depuydt at the nearby St. Rumbold's Cathedral. Peeters became the chief organist in 1925 after Depuydt passed away, and he published his Symphonic Fantasy on an Eastern Gregorian Alleluia, Op. 13. His reputation as an educator quickly grew, and he accepted additional teaching positions at the Ghent Conservatory in 1931 and at the Tilburg Conservatory in 1935. He regularly performed in cathedrals in Belgium and Holland, and after World War II he visited the United States, South America, and Australia. In 1948 Peeters left his positions with the Ghent Conservatory and the Tilburg Conservatory, and he became the organ professor at the Antwerp Conservatory. He was eventually promoted to director in 1952, and he left his position at the Lemmens Institute. Peeters continued composing, teaching, and performing, and he received several honors and awards for his contributions to the Catholic Church. By the 1960s, his style as a composer had become more introspective, and combined elements of early music with modern concepts such as polyrhythms and atonality. Some of his more well-known works include the Entrata Festiva, Op. 93, and the earlier Toccata, Fugue, and Hymn on Ave Maris Stella, Op. 28. After suffering a spinal injury in 1978, Peeters discontinued any touring, but he kept composing, and he performed at St. Rumbold's Cathedral until his death in 1986. ~ RJ Lambert, Rovi