Friedrich Burgmüller

It is quite possible that Friedrich Burgmüller (1806 - 1874) wrote his etudes in imitation of Chopin’s fiendishly difficult but wonderful works. An experienced teacher resident in Paris, he would have rightly noticed that there was a scarcity of music that would be of interest to beginning pianists — the etudes by Czerny, Cramer or Pozzoli are useful but one-sided, both technically and musically. It was a stroke of genius on his part to fill this gap with his op. 100 and 109, as these pieces cover just about the entire range of pianistic difficulties. La Candeur, in all its simplicity, is a fine exercise for the beginning pianist in legato playing, speed, harmony, musicality, phrasing, and tone weighting. The even better-known Arabesque etc., on the other hand, develops speed in both hands, wrist movement, wide leaps and independence of the hands. A student rarely has the impression that he is practicing a study, as all of these pieces contain musical challenges that parallel their technical difficulties. The atmospheric titles Burgmüller provided for these works make his intentions even clearer: their musical aspect is at least as important, if not more so, than the purely technical.

Jan Vermeulen and I stated in the preface to our book Pianospelen that we believe that piano technique has no sense if it does not start from the musical story you want to tell — and this is precisely why we attach such great importance to Burgmüller’s etudes: all the techniques we deal with are linked to musical interpretation and can be found in his pedagogical works.

Veerle Peeters
Veerle Peeters studied at the Luca School of Arts in Leuven with Jan Vermeulen. During her studies she became a laureate of several important piano competitions. After her studies, she led the chamber music ensemble “Frescamente” for ten years. In 2006 the ensemble was laureate of the prestigious chamber music competition “Golden Wings” (now “Supernova”). In 2007 they released a CD with 20th century music for piano, violin, horn and clarinet. That same year they became finalists of the “International Chamber Music Competition Almere” in the Netherlands. Veerle has recorded several CDs with work for piano(forte) solo by, among others, the French composer Mel Bonis and the Flemish Zen Buddhist and composer Luc De Winter.

In 2014 Veerle formed a duet with pianist Jan Vermeulen. She had been directing all of his Schubert recordings since 2004 when he asked her as his partner to expand his Schubert series with the four-hand repertoire. In March 2019, the complete recordings were released by the Etcetera Records label. The duet recorded the works on a period instrument (J. N. Tröndlin from 1830), an absolute world premiere, and has been acclaimed at home and abroad. They have already played countless concerts in Belgium and far beyond.