Description: | When selecting pieces from the Advent collection to play, I couldn't decide between the two Veni, Emmanuel settings by Flor Peeters and Marilyn Biery. So I recorded both. I wanted to upload them together, but as it was my first time on Contrebombarde to post, I didn't realize there was a one-per-day limit. (Also, I didn't realize I could have spliced the two recordings together into one file at that time.)
This setting is a complete contrast to that of the Marilyn Biery that I've posted. Peeters takes a quieter, introspective approach to the 15th century French processional. The main statement of the chorale is broken into two sections, each played on a flute in mostly parallel 6ths in the hands. Before, between, and after those Peeters placed an introduction, interludes, and coda of parallel sixths above a pedalpoint with a split registration of 8' and 2', very Baroque-like.
Every single cadence features an open, perfect fifth, giving the piece a Renaissance flavor, for which Peeters is known. In this recording, I may be guilty of enjoying that final resolution a bit too long. But the settling of overtones and acoustics from everything before into that last open-fifth Phrygian E was so gratifying and mystical that I hung on to and savored it. |