A few weeks back I was in Delft strolling and 'getting lost' - in the process we visited the stately 'Niewe Kerk' - the official church of the royal family here - and went inside, also climbed the tower that is over a 100 mts high - they allow you really to climb nearly to the top. Several times being able to go outside and circle the bell tower. At one level we passed the bells and the level above the carrillion bells organ and equipment. At the entrance there was a list of 'beiaards', as the players of the carillion of bells are called, since the 16th century. The third one was, if I recall rightly, Jacob de Blinde - which means 'Jacob the blind one'.
It struck me deeply. A blind men climbing the towers to make the music (the steps very straight, nearly bumped my head twice, at one point I could not look down - scared...) Here was he, the blind one, touching his way all the way into church and up the stairs finding his way in the tower towards the bells. Making the most beautiful music! Remember, this was the most important church of the country - so only the best would play here! I imagine his mother shedding quite some tears during his childhood and youth - tears brought before God's throne and turned into Joy for all around! and probably to the man's heart! In my search to the man, I could not find his name but found another one from about the same period - a Jan Jan van Eyck (this one in Utrecht) which was payed for also playing his flute throughout the town (see below).
May those whose tears are plentiful be transformed into joy of many! Let it also be a reminder to us that our failures through God's Power can be our strength!
pictures of the Niewe Kerk and utube with a flute playing written by Jan van Eyck and the tower climbing and playing by a baiaard of today - it is this tower that we climbed!
JACOB VAN EYCK (from http://www.essentialvermeer.com/music/music_new.html) - born: Heusden (near 's-Hertogenbosch), 1589/90
Jacob van Eyck was a Dutch carillonneur, bell expert, recorder player and composer. He was born blind and inherited the noble title of "jonkheer" from his mother's side. He spent his early years in Heusden. In 1623 he visited Utrecht, where he was appointed "beiermeester" (carillonneur) of the Domkerk in 1625. Three years later he became director of the Utrecht bellworks, having technical supervision over all the parish-church bells. Later he also became carillonneur of the Janskerk, the Jacobikerk and the city hall.
Van Eyck discovered the connection between a bell's shape and its overtone structure, which enabled bells to be tuned properly. The famous bell founders François and Pieter Hemony had cooperated in this discovery. Van Eyck's work drew the attention of such prominent intellectuals as the Dutch scientist Isaac Beeckman, René Descartes (who lived in Utrecht for some years) and Constantijn Huygens (a distant relative, and dedicatee of Van Eyck's Der Fluyten Lust-Hof). Both Descartes and Huygens describe in their letters to the French music theorist Marin Mersenne how Van Eyck was able to isolate different partials in one bell without touching it: simply by means of whistling or humming the desired tone close to the bell and making use of the resonance principle (overtones).
In 1649 his salary at the Janskerk was increased, "provided that he would now and then in the evening entertain the people strolling in the churchyard with the sound of his little flute," a practice that was first mentioned in a poem of 1640. His first collection for the soprano recorder, Euterpe oft Speel-goddinne (Amsterdam 1644) had been enlarged and became later the famous two-volume Der Fluyten Lust-Hof, which remains until today the largest work in European history written for a wind instrument. Moreover, it remains the only opus of considerable dimensions that was "dictated" by the author as he improvised on the flute. Therefore, the original print contained many errors, but the second print already appeared "op nieuws overhoort ... door den Autheur" (heard[!] through anew ... by the author) and was printed several times during van Eyck's lifetime.
The work contains almost 150 pieces for solo soprano recorder in C. A few of the pieces are free compositions (preludes and fantasias), but the majority consist in variations on popular melodies. Although most of them have Dutch titles, many originate from the French air de cour repertory. Some are Italian (from Giulio Caccini, Gastoldi), English (John Dowland), German and Dutch and 16 were borrowed from the Genevan Psalter. The process of composing variations was called "breecken" (breaking) meaning that the notes of a theme were broken into notes of smaller values, each reprise becoming increasingly elaborate.
Despite of van Eyck's noble parentage and his connections to Huygens, he appears to have lived very simply. Whether the success of the Fluyten Lust-Hof did anything to improve his finances is not known.
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