Jacob van Eyck Quarterly

'Rosemont' : Pulling down, building up

Jacob van Eyck's variations are based on diminution: the notes of the theme are 'broken' into groups of shorter notes. A set of variations is a purely instrumental manifestation of this principle, but the technique as such was applied both by singers and instrumentalists. A good example is the Dutch national anthem 'Wilhelmus'. The melody sung today is a strongly adorned version compared to the theme as it can be found in Van Eyck's Der Fluyten Lust-hof.

A fascinating piece in this respect is 'Rosemont' [NVE 11], because vocal and instrumental features are combined here in a special way. The tune came from England. In Der Fluyten Lust-hof, it starts with two four-bar phrases. Their opening formulas are identical (bars 1-2 = 5-6), they close differently.

In his first variation, modo 2, Van Eyck leaves bars 1-2 untouched, whereas their counterparts 5-6 are adorned. Now it is interesting to compare Van Eyck's treatment to the way 'Rosemont' was sung in his days. [example] The music appeared in two songbooks, with different Dutch texts (contrafacts): Extractum catholicum (1631) and Pieter Pers' Bellerophon (1638, with several reprints). In both cases, bars 5-6 are not identical with 1-2, they form an embellished version of them.

		The melody (beginning) of 'Rosemont', from Pieter Pers' Bellerophon (ed. [1648]), p. 189.

That the vocal ornaments are inextricably bound up with the song, is proven by the Rosemont text. Bars 1-2 have six syllables, whereas the corresponding bars 5-6 have ten ('t Lof and 't Wout being one syllable each):

1-2 Rosemond, waer ghy vliet,
3-4 Ghy ontloopt my noch soo niet,
5-6 't Lof dat voor u beeft, als ghy 't Wout door-rent,
7-8 Seyt: mijn Rosemont is hier ontrent:
[…]

Translation:

1-2 Rosemond, no matter where you flee
3-4 You'll still not outrun me;
5-6 The leaves that you rustle as you run through the woods
7-8 Say that my Rosemont is near here:
[...]

(translation: Ruth van Baak Griffioen)

A comparison shows that Van Eyck's ornaments from modo 2 are not his own invention in the least, they simply stem from the vocal original (only the rhythm was changed a little, and the half notes were divided into quarter notes).

In other words: the instrumentalist Van Eyck didn't start from the beginning here. He went back to utmost basics, by ignoring the ornamentation from the vocal melody initially. Only after pulling down, he started building up in an efficient way, making use of what the song offered.

Thiemo Wind

 No. 2006/1 will be available on 1 January, 2006

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