Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (April or May, 1562–October 16, 1621) was a Dutch… Read Full Bio ↴Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (April or May, 1562–October 16, 1621) was a Dutch composer, organist, and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras.
He was born in Deventer, Netherlands and died in Amsterdam. Many of his family were musicians—principally organists—and he is known to have studied with Jan Willemszoon Lossy as well as Zarlino, the famous composer and theorist, in Venice.
Sweelinck represents the highest development of the Dutch keyboard school, and indeed represented one of the highest pinnacles attained in keyboard contrapuntal complexity and refinement before J.S. Bach. However, he was a skilled composer for voices as well, and composed over 250 works for voice (chansons, madrigals, motets and Psalms). Some of Sweelinck's innovations were of profound musical importance, including the fugue—he was the first to write an organ fugue which began simply, with one subject, successively adding texture and complexity until a final climax and resolution, an idea which was perfected at the end of the Baroque era by Bach. Stylistically Sweelinck's music also brings together the richness, complexity and spatial sense of the Gabrielis, with whom he was familiar from his time in Venice, and the ornamentation and intimate forms of the English keyboard composers. In formal development, especially in the use of countersubject, stretto, and organ point (pedal point), his music was far beyond the works of Frescobaldi—its nearest predecessor—and looks ahead to Bach.
Sweelinck was a master improviser, and acquired the informal title of the "Orpheus of Amsterdam." Over 70 keyboard works of his have survived, and many of them may be similar to the improvisations that residents of Amsterdam around 1600 were likely to have heard. Even his vocal music, which is more conservative than his keyboard writing, shows a striking rhythmic complexity and an unusual richness of contrapuntal devices.
As a teacher, his influence was perhaps as great as it was as a composer, since his pupils included the great North German school, including Jacob Praetorius, Scheidemann, Siefert, and Samuel and Gottfried Scheidt. He was known in Germany as the "maker of organists" and was clearly in demand as a teacher.
His influence was international: for example, some of his music appears in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, which otherwise mainly contains the work of English composers. Sweelinck wrote variations on John Dowland's internationally famous Lachrimae Pavane, and John Bull, the English keyboard composer, wrote a set of variations on a theme of Sweelinck, indicating the close connection between the different schools of composition across the English Channel.
He was born in Deventer, Netherlands and died in Amsterdam. Many of his family were musicians—principally organists—and he is known to have studied with Jan Willemszoon Lossy as well as Zarlino, the famous composer and theorist, in Venice.
Sweelinck represents the highest development of the Dutch keyboard school, and indeed represented one of the highest pinnacles attained in keyboard contrapuntal complexity and refinement before J.S. Bach. However, he was a skilled composer for voices as well, and composed over 250 works for voice (chansons, madrigals, motets and Psalms). Some of Sweelinck's innovations were of profound musical importance, including the fugue—he was the first to write an organ fugue which began simply, with one subject, successively adding texture and complexity until a final climax and resolution, an idea which was perfected at the end of the Baroque era by Bach. Stylistically Sweelinck's music also brings together the richness, complexity and spatial sense of the Gabrielis, with whom he was familiar from his time in Venice, and the ornamentation and intimate forms of the English keyboard composers. In formal development, especially in the use of countersubject, stretto, and organ point (pedal point), his music was far beyond the works of Frescobaldi—its nearest predecessor—and looks ahead to Bach.
Sweelinck was a master improviser, and acquired the informal title of the "Orpheus of Amsterdam." Over 70 keyboard works of his have survived, and many of them may be similar to the improvisations that residents of Amsterdam around 1600 were likely to have heard. Even his vocal music, which is more conservative than his keyboard writing, shows a striking rhythmic complexity and an unusual richness of contrapuntal devices.
As a teacher, his influence was perhaps as great as it was as a composer, since his pupils included the great North German school, including Jacob Praetorius, Scheidemann, Siefert, and Samuel and Gottfried Scheidt. He was known in Germany as the "maker of organists" and was clearly in demand as a teacher.
His influence was international: for example, some of his music appears in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, which otherwise mainly contains the work of English composers. Sweelinck wrote variations on John Dowland's internationally famous Lachrimae Pavane, and John Bull, the English keyboard composer, wrote a set of variations on a theme of Sweelinck, indicating the close connection between the different schools of composition across the English Channel.
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Da pacem Domine in diebus nostris
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck Lyrics
No lyrics text found for this track.
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
TheOneAndOnlyZeno
My other score-videos of Sweelinck: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLafpqg3vsKmfh2AzGi3vLNjMWifPIJXo7
Joannes Couchet
Thanks for the upload! It's worthy to note that this is played on the wonderful 1610 Compenius organ at Frederiksborg.
Verse 1 (a 2)
0:00 Insinuatio (imitated voices)
0:20 Sequential treatment of figures
1:05 Scales/further diminution
1:25 Sequences
Verse 2 (a3) C.F. in Tenor
1:49 Scales
2:04 Cantus firmus
2:54 Scales
3:16 Metric/rhythmic variation
Verse 3 (a4) C.F. in Alto
3:36 Ostinato/stretto
4:09 Metric/rhythmic (triple time)
4:30 Ostinato/stretto
Verse 4 (a4) C.F. in Bass
5:12 Insinuatio
5:49 Cantus firmus
5:57 Scales
6:14 Ostinato/stretto
6:42 Scales
6:59 Coda (over a pedal point)
Analysis extracted from here: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/36687796.pdf
Joannes Couchet
@TheOneAndOnlyZeno Da pacem is here.
https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht?PPN=PPN1671389506&PHYSID=PHYS_0137
This is the primary source of most of Sweelinck's most famous pieces - it was copied out likely under Sweelinck's supervision by his student Andreas Düben.
TheOneAndOnlyZeno
@Joannes Couchet Interesting - what composer is it? Doesn't seem to say who.
Joannes Couchet
@TheOneAndOnlyZeno I just realized that the Lynar A1 tabulature is indeed digitized - http://resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/SBB0002914D00000000
I have work to do now! :)
TheOneAndOnlyZeno
@Joannes Couchet There are advantages and disadvantages, namely that you have to be fully aware when page turning - it is easy to lose track and mess up the timing. Especially when you have to record a video that is 4 hours long - which is my next big project, where I can not leave the computer or stop page turning for such a long time, it is very difficult. Done it before when I recorded Die Meistersinger von Nuremberg, but it was real difficult.
Joannes Couchet
@TheOneAndOnlyZeno So you just record your screen and audio as you scroll through the score? That's really smart, I have to make it as a slideshow with timings that fit the music. Maybe I'll try your approach, although I hope it does not compromise the video/audio quality.