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Jacob van Eyck and his Euterpe oft Speel-goddinne [abstract] The American Recorder, XXVII, 1 (1986), 9-15
In 1644 the first part of Jacob van Eyck’s creative output was printed by the Amsterdam music publisher Paulus Matthysz. This first edition was titled Euterpe oft Speel-goddinne I ('Euterpe or the Goddess of Instrumental Music'). A second volume appeared in 1646 as Der Fluyten Lust-hof II. An enlarged second printing of Euterpe I which appeared in 1649 was finally called Der Fluyten Lust-hof I. The edition of 1644 contains sixty-six pieces, the second of 1649 eighty-four. The sole extant copy of Euterpe I is preserved in the Library of Amsterdam University [2007 D 43]. Unfortunately, the booklet is incomplete: of the 71 folios, nos. 42 to 53 are missing. The source has been neglected for a long time. On 10 August 1644, van Eyck sent a copy of Euterpe I to his dedicatee Constantijn Huygens. The letter which accompanied the packet has survived. The blind van Eyck asked his 'honorable Lord and cousin' to undertake corrections because 'errors may have come in during the writing and printing.' Unfortunately Huygens' answer has been lost. Although many mistakes in Euterpe I were corrected five years later in Der Fluyten Lust-hof I, new errors crept in due to the new typesetting. For example, 'Een Schots Lietjen', in F major, ends in the Lust-hof on a C. In Euterpe the final note is F, certainly the preferred reading. It is not always a matter of right or wrong. In a great number of pieces the two sources have minor variant readings, reflecting different musical ideas. Such variants offer interesting insights into van Eyck's compositional process. Not all of Euterpe's pieces reappeared in Der Fuyten Lust-hof I. Two of them, each entitled 'Stemme nova' [nve 65&66], are absent from the 1649 edition but were reinserted in the third of c1655. A 'Sarabande' with through-composed Modo 2 [nve 10] appears in none of the later editions, 'Psalm 118' [nve 4*] and 'Eerste Carileen' [nve 63a] received new variations in 1649 [nve 4 & 63b]. The Sarabande has the same melody as 'Aerdigh Martyntje' [nve 7]. The early version of 'Psalm 118' is obviously incomplete, a Modo 2 in quarter notes is missing. The 'Eerste Carileen' appeared in Der Fluyten Lust-hof I with a somewhat different version of the theme. It must have been this difference that made van Eyck compose new variations. In both versions the tune has two variations, Euterpe's being to more virtuosic.
Euterpe I contains the following pieces: nve 1-3, 4*, 5-14, 16-36, 51 (modo 6 only), 52-62, 63a, 64-66. Sole extant copy in: Universiteit van Amsterdam, bibliotheek, afdeling Handschriften en archieven, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, tel. +31 20 5252284 ; fax +31 20 5252311; www.uba.uva.nl ; mss@uba.uva.nl |