In Flanders' Fields vol.68 - Around Jacob van Eyck

‘Around JacobVan Eyck’ is a program built entirely around the blind th-century musical jack-of-all-trades Jacob Van Eyck. Besides the recorder, he played the organ, the carillon and the transverse flute; he composed and he repaired and improved carillons. Van Eyck wrote three volumes of tunes for the ‘hand flute’ (i.e., the soprano recorder in C), entitled ‘Euterpe, or the Playing Goddess’ and ‘The Flutes’ Garden of Delight I/II’. Each volume is built following the same pattern, of theme and variations. Musicological research has shown that most themes were ‘borrowed’. But in the spirit of the baroque, this did not entail accusations of plagiarism. On the contrary, one’s music providing a base of inspiration for other composers was considered an honor. But Van Eyck didn’t just borrow any old tune; he gleaned them with great care from the works of Europe’s most prominent composers.Van Eyck’s themes go back to German songbooks, collections of Italian madrigals, English keyboard works, etc. Van Eyck proceeded like a true eclectic, and then ornamented his themes to his heart’s content. Each ornament (or ‘modo’) makes for more black notes, and so the simplest themes end up as virtuoso passages and complex sequences of notes. Intrigued as they were by Van Eyck’s music, Ardalus tried to trace the origin of some of the most striking themes from the volumes of his recorder music, and then they hit upon the idea of linking the originals, by composers like Caccini, Dowland, Sweelinck, Uccellini, Gastoldi and others, to the ornamented versions by Van Eyck. This enabled them, and enables the listener, to have a fresh look at Van Eyck’s music.