Erik Bosgraaf performs ‘d’Lof-zangh Marie’ by Jacob van Eyck

The theme of ‘d’Lofzangh Marie’ (the Magnificat), with its stern-looking half and whole notes, can be counted among the realm of the psalms. In the Dutch Reformed Church only the singing of the 150 psalms was allowed in translations of the Genevan Psalter, plus a small number of other related songs. The praise song of Mary, from Luke 1:46–55, was one of them. ‘My soul magnifies the Lord.’

Research by Thiemo Wind has shown that the psalm variations were not part of the standard repertoire that Van Eyck performed as a recorder player on summer evenings for the strollers at the Janskerkhof in Utrecht. He developed them with a view to the publication of Der Fluyten Lust-hof, taking his carillon practice (in which the psalm melodies did have a place as variation material) as a starting point. He was confronted with a challenge: how to create musically interesting monophonic sets or variation?

‘d’Lof-zangh Marie’ must have been one of his first attempts in 1644. He found a solution in partially letting go of the strict ‘breaking’, the division of thematic notes into notes of increasingly shorter values. In the first variation, Modo 2, it is noticeable that quarter notes and eighth notes alternate and balance each other. Modo 3 begins as a regular eighth-note variation, but the final phrase is broken into sixteenth notes. On the carillon, with its limited possibilities, he didn’t get around to such fast notes.

The mixed style makes this composition one of the most attractive sets of ‘psalm’ variations by Van Eyck.

🔹 Instruments
This piece is played on a ‘Ganassi’ soprano recorder in C by Hans Nieuwland

🔹Edition used: New Vellekoop Edition, No. 13.

🔹Literature: Thiemo Wind, ‘Jacob van Eyck and the Others – Dutch Solo Repertoire for Recorder in the Golden Age’ (Utrecht: KVNM, 2011), pp. 229–288.

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[Joy_of_Music_Kate]

Seems a variation of ather themes by Van Eyk