Video by SaliArt Studio Taiwan / Rhino Huang
Many thanks to Meng-Heng Cheng
Instrument: Ganassi in G a'=465 Hz by Monika Musch

In June 2023 I was soundchecking for a concert with over a hundred recorder players of the Hsinchu Recorder Orchestra. In the few minutes between general rehearsal and concert with the audience still not in the hall, I spontaneously decided to record a version of Jacob van Eyck's variations on Psalm 118 in the beautiful main hall of the concert hall in Kaohsiung. Enjoy!

Of the nearly 150 variation sets in Der Fluyten Lust-hof, seventeen are based on psalms and related melodies as can be found in the Genevan Psalter. The note values of these solemn church melodies are limited to whole and half notes, occasionally with a longa as a final note. Two versions of “Psalm 118” have survived: an incomplete one in Euterpe oft Speel-goddinne (1644) [New Vellekoop Edition 4*], replaced five years later in the first volume of Der Fluyten Lust-hof by a new one [NVE 4]. Erik Bosgraaf plays the second set here.

Compared to the original version, the second set has the novelty of an intermediate variation between modo 3 (eighths) and modo 5 (sixteenths). Eighths and sixteenths alternate in a lively dialogue in this modo 4 (starting at 4’39). It is one of Van Eyck’s most freewheeling psalm variations, a “fantasia upon”, and makes the listener almost forget the theme behind it.

Research by the musicologist Thiemo Wind has shown that the psalm variations were not part of Van Eyck’s standard performance repertoire. He writes (pp. 268–69): “This is hardly surprising: as a carillonneur Van Eyck was required to play psalms on the carillon, but as an unpaid recorder player entertaining those out for an evening stroll in the St. John’s churchyard in Utrecht, he would surely have preferred cheerful popular melodies. These were not only more suitable for variation, but were also undoubtedly more entertaining for his audience.”

[…] “There is compelling evidence to support the theory that Van Eyck turned to traditional carillon technique as a point of departure in cultivating his psalm variations for the recorder. This evidence is found primarily in the initial tendency toward harmonically oriented ornamentation, which later made way for more linear, melodic figuration. Comparison of the original and revised modo 3 from ‘Psalm 118’ [NVE 4*, 4] confirms this.”

A basic principle of Van Eyck’s music is that a tempo, once chosen, should be maintained throughout the variation set. The psalm variations are no exception to this rule. Some modern recorder players question this principle especially in this repertoire area, because the themes then have to be played unusually slowly. We know, however, that they were sung very slowly in Van Eyck’s time. In the eighteenth century the organist Quirinus van Blankenburg called 67 half notes per minute a suitable psalm tempo. This also works for Van Eyck’s psalm variations: the themes retain their flow and the fastest variations can be played at this tempo by any true virtuoso.

(c) Thiemo Wind

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