Jacob van Eyck Quarterly

COLUMN : Plea for a monophonic Van Eyck

Monophony was more than sufficient for Jacob van Eyck to fully display his musical mastership as a performer. He enchanted his audience on the Utrecht Janskerkhof with merely the sounds of one single, little recorder. His musical legacy is still popular today. Yet a rather odd tendency shows up in modern performance practice. Both in recordings and concert programmes, recorder players are inclined to present the variations in a multi-part version, combined with a lute, a viola da gamba or in other ensembles. That is strange, is it not?

Transforming Van Eyck's monophonic music into multi-part settings has a long history. Better to say: it started in 1644, when his publisher Paulus Matthijsz took modo 2 of 'Comagain' and turned it into a duet, which was published anonymously in the anthology Der Goden Fluit-hemel. Five years later, he took five pieces from Der Fluyten Lust-hof I and conjured duets out of them. These arrangements clearly demonstrate a problem: either you produce harmonic clashes on occasion, or you have to change Van Eyck's notes to produce a proper version. His ornamental patterns contain a lot of harmonic fixation. These 'harmonies' seldom completely mesh with precooked bass lines.

The question is why performers tend to abandon monophony. Are they afraid that monophony is blamed for being too simple, judged as inferior to polyphony or at least to multi-part settings? Virtuosity easily gets a bad press in our modern times. Virtuosity in combination with monophony must be utterly suspect! And imagine you're having intellectuals and musical connoisseurs in your audience. Or do performers fear that the public gets tired when listening to merely one recorder? Don't they trust Van Eyck or don't they trust their own expressive qualities? Who can tell?

Monophony has had strong advocates throughout all ages. In the eighteenth century, for instance, Johann Mattheson - as a critic of Rameau's harmonic doctrine - defended pure melody as nobody else possibly could: 'Die blosse Melodie beweget mit ihrer edlen Einfalt, Klarheit und Deutlichkeit die Herzen solcher Gestalt, dass sie offt alle harmonische Künste übertrifft.' ['Pure melody, with its noble simplicity, clarity and clearness, can move the hearts in such a way, that it surpasses all harmonic arts.'] Several examples are called to witness, varying from congregational singing to the singing of a bird. In dance music, the power of melody is so strong that it doesn't matter whether there is a bass or not. English dancing masters even prefer not to have accompaniment, according to Mattheson. For the strength of monophony he offers 'examples from all kind of styles'. [Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739), 138].

Opting for multi-part arrangements may be inspired by the way in which ensembles organize their programmes around Van Eyck. Most of the themes from Der Fluyten Lust-hof, such as French airs de cour, songs by John Dowland and 'Amarilli' by Giulio Caccini, are originally for voice with accompaniment (basso continuo, lute, etcetera). As a matter of course, they are performed according to the sources. Strophic song seems to provoke a practice in which the stanzas alternate with variations by Van Eyck, and it is seducing to then keep up the multi-part discourse. Ensemble programmes and concerts around Van Eyck tend to be quite similar (and predictable) in this respect.

A focus on this stereotypical way of performing can be enough to put an audience to sleep. Performers should realize that an unaccompanied solo recorder can do wonders here. Alternation between monophonic and multi-part music making brings relief, contrast. This can enhance attention spans.

It is that obvious that monophony provides the performer with ultimate freedom and the possibility for personal expression. That's what can make Van Eyck's playful music so compelling. What more do we need? Trust him.

Thiemo Wind

 No. 2005/3 will be available on 1 July, 2005

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