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Foreword Most variations from Der Fluyten Lust-hof ('The Flute's Pleasure Garden'), the extensive collection of solo compositions for soprano (descant) recorder by the Utrecht city carillonneur and recorder player Jonker Jacob van Eyck (c.1590 - 1657), may very well be qualified as virtuoso repertoire. The notes of the themes are 'broken' into shorter ones, each reprise becoming increasingly virtuosic. Van Eyck's audience experienced this as highly spectacular. In 1640 the Utrecht poet Regnerus Opperveldt made mention of his 'agile mouth's breath', in 1646 Thomas Asselijn praised in his poem preceding the second volume of the Lust-hof 'the regular dancing of the fingers', and Lodewijk Meyer reported in his elegy on van Eyck's death on 'those hands which with skilled that could play so sure and swift on carillon keys and pipe'. Despite the virtuosity generally associated with Der Fluyten Lust-hof, the collection also contains various variational sequences that do not result in chains of sixteenth or even shorter notes. These relatively simple works are collected in the present album. They offer student recorder players an early introduction to van Eyck's art of variation, without giving the unsatisfying feeling that would be aroused by omitting the most difficult variations. Our collection contains complete compositions only. The musical text is based on the New Vellekoop Edition (also published by XYZ), the only complete edition of Der Fluyten Lust-hof and, moreover, the only edition for which all available sources were consulted. Only in this way can full jestice be done to the composer's intentions. The original sources contain numerous mistakes. We must realize that van Eyck was blind and did not correct the music until it was dictated and printed; after this he would have the music played to him. The location of the compositions is always mentioned in the critical notes. For the original first volume of the Lust-hof the second edition of 1649 ('re-heard, revised and enlarged by the author') was used, for the second volume the second edition of 1654. In the commentary only the corrections with regard to these two main sources are mentioned. Where the main source gives a correct reading in places where other editions contain mistakes or alternative readings, this remained unrecorded. Editorial additions are shown in square brackets except for ties which are dotted. The original use of accidentals (referring to the following note only) has been converted to modern practice (in which they are valid until the next bar-line). This procedure is explained in detail in the foreword of the New Vellekoop Edition. Thiemo Wind |
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