Van Eyck - A Musical Landscape

JACOB (CA.1590 - 1657) VAN EYCK A Musical Landscape Tunes for Recorder & Continuo

PRELUDIO 01. Preludium of Voorspel Camilo Brandi [11]

[01:07]

ECHOES FROM THE VILLAGE 02. Fantasia & Echo Sergio Candia [4] Camilo Brandi [10] – Eduardo Figueroa [7]

[02:20]

03. Boffons Sergio Candia [5] Camilo Brandi [11]

[01:43]

04. Batali Sergio Candia [6] Camilo Brandi [10] – Eduardo Figueroa [7]

[05:50]

FOREIGN AIRS 05. Amarilli mia bella Sergio Candia [3] Camilo Brandi [11] – Eduardo Figueroa [8]

[07:55]

06. Si vous me voules guerir Sergio Candia [3] Camilo Brandi [10] – Eduardo Figueroa [8]

07. Lavignione & Courante

[02:50]

Sergio Candia [2] Camilo Brandi [10] – Eduardo Figueroa [8]

[05:08]

08. Excusemoy Sergio Candia [3] Camilo Brandi [10] – Eduardo Figueroa [8]

[01:38]

09. Pavaen Lachrymae Sergio Candia [5] Camilo Brandi [10] – Eduardo Figueroa [9]

[08:27]

10. Derde, Doen Daphne d’over Sergio Candia [3] Camilo Brandi [10] – Eduardo Figueroa [9]

[09:10]

11. Den Nachtegael Sergio Candia [1] Camilo Brandi [11]

[04:30]

THE DANCE OF NATIONS 12. Ballet Sergio Candia [3] Camilo Brandi [10] – Eduardo Figueroa [9]

[01:36]

13. De France Courant Sergio Candia [3] Camilo Brandi [10] – Eduardo Figueroa [8]

14. Bravade Sergio Candia [3] Camilo Brandi [10] – Eduardo Figueroa [7]

15. Questa dolce sirena Sergio Candia [3] Camilo Brandi [10] – Eduardo Figueroa [7]

[02:40]

[02:00]

[01:49]

POSTLUDIO 16. Onse vader in Hemelryck Sergio Candia [2] Camilo Brandi [10] – Eduardo Figueroa [7]

[05:27]

Sergio Candia

Camilo Brandi

Eduardo Figueroa

(1) Soprano recorder in d, according to Rafi, 16th century Jorge Montero, Chile, 2008.

(2) Soprano recorder in c, according to Ganassi, 16th century Andreas Schwob, Swiss, 1994.

(3) Soprano recorder in c, after iconographic models, 17th century Andreas Schwob, Swiss, 1994.

(4) Alto recorder in g, according to van Eyck, 17th century Francesco Li Virghi, Italy, 2009.

(5) Alto recorder in f, according to Ganassi, 16th century Andreas Schwob, Swiss, 1994.

(6) Tenor recorder in c, according to Rafi, 16th century Francesco Li Virghi, Italy, 2003.

(7) 5-string guitar, after model by M. Sellas, 17th century Klaus Jacobsen, England, 2007, (8) Chitarrone, after model by M. Sellas, 17th century Klaus Jacobsen, England, 2005, (9) Archlute, according to baroque models, 17th century Juan Carlos Soto, Costa Rica, 2011.

(10) Harpsichord, after Zell, 18th century Matthias Kramer, Germany, 1996.

(11) Spinet, according to Delin, 18th century Mauricio Puentes, Chile, 2014 Temperament: Meantone 1/4 comma Pitch: A=440 Hz

Van Eyck: A musical landscape Melodies for recorder and basso continuo Notes on this recording By: Sergio Candia The creative proposal that materializes in this recording of our arrangements or “remakes” of some of J.J. van Eyck’s most famous variations for recorder without accompaniment is the continuation of a line of work of musical interpretation that we could call “historically informed instrumental re-writing”, which we have been doing with some works belonging to the corpus of the canonical repertoire of early music.

In relation to this record, it should be noted that the songs, airs and “tunes” for unaccompanied melodic instrument by

Jacob van Eyck (ca. 1590-1657), published in two volumes called “Der Fluyten Lust-Hof” (The Flute’s Delightful Park - or “Garden of Delights”) constitute a canonical repertoire for performers of early melodic instruments, particularly the recorder. As such, they are part of the concert repertoire and of countless phonographic recordings since the early music movement has been expanding, since the 1950s onwards.

However, its performance has generally remained confined to the modality originally defined by the author of this collection, i.e. as an unaccompanied solo instrument.

It is interesting to note that this collection of pieces by van Eyck compiles the melodies of wellknown works from the period

between the 16th and 17th centuries, including references to various genres such as Spanish, Dutch and Italian songs, English consort songs, Protestant chorales from Germany and the Netherlands, Italian madrigals, dances, pieces of a “programmatic” character and fantasias of French and Italian origin, among many others.

Three considerations are relevant to the case under analysis. Firstly, it is the only publication of its kind that was not “composed” or written in the strict sense by J.J. van Eyck, who was blind, but dictated to a third party, who acted as a transcriber.

Secondly, a consideration of the procedure of variation of the melodies allows us to infer a

characteristic style, very much influenced by the practices of master keyboardists of the period, such as Sweelinck, Cabezon, Frescobaldi and others, although distinctive from van Eyck in some “idiosyncratic” or personal style procedures (1).

the polyphonic scores or on the original harmonic accompaniment, that is, in an instrumental ensemble performance, coinciding almost completely in terms of the harmonic organization and the formal extension of the phrases, cadences and sections.

Thirdly, it is easy to infer that the original scores of some polyphonic pieces - which were certainly the primary source for the edition (such as John Dowland’s polyphonic pavane “Lachrimae”) - were in view. Indeed, van Eyck’s “transcriber”, who handed over the manuscripts for printing, seems on several occasions to have used the full score of each work as a harmonic and formal reference. In fact, this has allowed us in some of the pieces to perform van Eyck’s variations “superimposed” on

In our opinion this is the strongest evidence that some of the variations of van Eyck’s variations must have gone through at least one stage of accompanied performance with an instrumental ensemble (flute and virginal, flute and organ, consort of equal instruments or other instrumental organ), before they settled into their final state of variations on “tunes” for unaccompanied solo instrument.

Furthermore, the abundant iconographic and literary evidence

of musical practices in Protestant bourgeois environments in the Netherlands suggests that, with a high probability, the edition could have been used for ensemble performances, with basso continuo accompaniment or integrated with the other voices of the original polyphony.

It should also be noted that works like these ‘melodies with variations’ were written by such illustrious contemporaries of van Eyck as Paulus Matthytz, Johann Schop and Jan Pieter Sweelink, in which the same procedure of varying the melody by means of ‘glosses’, ‘diminutioni’ or ‘divisions’ of the soprano line, but with accompaniment by basso continuo or polyphonic parts, can be seen. Indeed, these melodies with variations in the style of

“divisions” and written in keys suitable for playing on various instruments (recorder, flute, violin, viola da gamba) proliferated in various publications of the period, such as the numerous editions of John Playford’s “English tunes” and other editions that appeared in England and the Netherlands in the second half of the 17th century. Many of them included a basso continuo accompaniment, increasing their possibilities for performance in both domestic and theatrical settings.

The selection of works for our record has taken into consideration that van Eyck’s famous and extensive publication is also a kind of “cultural chronicle in music”, in that the ensemble of pieces sonically portrays a wide field of images representative of

everyday city life, personal stories of love and melancholy, religious practices and even certain political events. It was a culturally complex panorama, in which the music of cultured and princely environments appears, as well as the most popular tunes, peasant melodies, market melodies, street theatre and even some battle tunes, with a nationalist tinge.

Therefore, if we consider the total set of themes and cultural references present in the titles of each piece, we can glimpse the personal vision -ethical and aesthetic- that van Eyck had of his time, somewhat enlightened, showing both his musical cultural background and his intuitive knowledge of the spirit of his time, where the religious component appears permanently in dramatic

contrast, or in consonance, with secular everyday life.

It is with this in mind that we call our work “a musical landscape”.

A comment on our version.

In our versions of each piece we proceeded by establishing sequences for the variations that do not always follow the order or arrangement of the original publication, since we elaborated “mixed” versions, selecting some “modes” (variations) from each work, relocating them mixed with “modes” from alternative versions present in the same publication (e.g. “Pavaen Lachrymae”, “Derde, Doen Daphne d’over”, “Den Nachtegael”). This way of

proceeding was inspired by the “orchestrations” that van Eyck’s publisher Paulus Matthysz used to perform (2).

In several cases we also follow the procedure of “chaining” the material in one way or another, as a way of giving greater dynamism and rhetorical power to the sequence of variations, a procedure also characteristic of van Eyck’s style, as Thiemo Wind has pointed out in his numerous and detailed musicological studies on this work (3).

Sergio Candia Estudio MusicAntigua

Sources for this comment: (1) Wind, Thiemo (2011): Jacob van Eyck and the Others – Dutch Solo Repertoire for Recorder in the Golden Age. Muziekhistorische Monografieën 21, Utrecht: Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis (KVNM).

(2) Wind, Thiemo: “Je nepuis eviter: 17de-eeuwse blokfluitvariaties van een nederlandse ‘groupe des trois”. Musica Antiqua, X,3 (1993), 104-111) (3) Wind, Thiemo, “Chain Variations in van Eyck’s Der Fluyten Lust-hof”. The American Recorder, XXVIII, 4 (1987), 141-144) (4) Lasocki, David (ed.), “The Recorder in the Seventeenth Century”.

Proceedings of the International Recorder Symposium, Utrecht 1993 (Utrecht, 1995), 177-195.

(5) Mansfield Thomson, John & Rowland-Jones, Anthony (1995): “The Cambridge Companion to the Recorder”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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The editions of the Alio Modo Project offer high quality recordings of the works performed by Estudio MusicAntigua, La Compañía de Céfiro and other associated ensembles and solo musicians.

*** The recording for this publication was made at the San Juan Auditorium, Instituto de Música, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago de Chile, January 2019. The sound recording and digital audio editing was done by Félix Rodríguez Betancourt.

Score Edition:

Camilo Brandi & Eduardo Figueroa Eduardo Figueroa

Sound recording, mastering and digital editing:

Félix Rodríguez

Artistic direction and Notes on this recording:

Sergio Candia

Revision of English text:

Amrit Ramos

Graphic design: Photography:

Mary Paz Albornoz Carlos Arriagada

Ancient Music Project – Chile 2024 aliomodoproject@gmail.com YouTube channel: Alio Modo Project https://www.youtube.com/@aliomodoproject1763

Basso continuo and arrangements:

Alio Modo Santiago de Chile – 2024 All rights reserved

Project CCA2018 financed by the Dirección de Artes y Cultura,Vicerrectoría de Investigación, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.