Jacob van Eyck Quarterly 2003 / 4

	Jacob van Eyck Quarterly	2003, No. 4 (October)
	Music for the Janskerkhof (1): 'De lustelycke Mey' Jacob van Eyck played his little recorder on summer evenings at the Janskerkhof, the yard surrounding the Janskerk (St. John's Church). It was a park with trees and small pathways that were paved with oblong bricks. A drawing from 1604 gives a good impression of this place, where the citizens of Utrecht went for an evening stroll.
	Many of the recorder pieces by van Eyck may have been heard here for the first time, although not the whole Der Fluyten Lust-hof can be linked to the Janskerkhof. 'O Heyligh zaligh Bethlehem' [NVE 56], 'Een Kindeken is ons gebooren' [NVE 119] and 'Puer nobis nascitur' [NVE 128] are Christmas songs, for instance. That these pieces were played during the summer is as unlikely as van Eyck playing the recorder outside, in the Netherlands, in the month of December… On the other hand, it cannot be excluded that some pieces were especially developed for the Janskerkhof. We'll focus on possible candidates in two issues of this Quarterly.
	The first piece for which a special connection can be presumed, is 'De lustelycke Mey' [NVE 110] ('Delightful May') from the second volume of Der Fluyten Lust-hof (1646). It goes without saying that the song was a 'seasonal article'. For the carillonneur van Eyck, the season at the Janskerkhof started in May, as his contract stipulated. 'De lustelycke Mey' was probably his seasons opening. In the archives of the Chapter of St. John's, I discovered that May Eve was celebrated in the churchyard on the evening preceding the first day of May. For these evenings, guards were hired to protect the little trees, so that nobody could climb them. Apparently there was something special to watch. It was habit to plant a May tree and dance around it. For the Janskerkhof, however, this is quite unlikely. A May tree suggests an open space, not a park with its own trees. Moreover, public dancing was forbidden in the strictly Calvinist Utrecht of that time. Therefore we should probably better consider a May fire. This tradition still exists in the eastern Netherlands and in surrounding countries (Belgium, Germany).
		It is interesting to look at van Eyck's 'De lustelycke Mey' with this in mind. It seems designed to accompany something. The old melody, probably predating the 16th century, is quite long in itself. Nevertheless, van Eyck's 'breaking of notes' proceeds very slowly. Modo 2 hardly differs from the unadorned theme.
	Furthermore, the piece is notated according to the 'chain' principle. Performing the theme and its four variations (Modo 2-5) takes approximately fourteen minutes, making it one of the longest pieces from the whole Lust-hof, at the most exceeded by the second 'Pavane Lacryme' [NVE 59]. Triplets with a dotted rhythm at the end of Modo 4 (shortly returning halfway Modo 5) give the rather severe piece an unexpected lively character. 'De lustelycke Mey': welcome in the Janskerkhof.
	Thiemo Wind
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