51. Wedding song

Occasional poetry was a much cultivated genre in the Netherlands in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was first adopted from Germany by university circles (hence written in Latin), and soon became a thoroughly Dutch phenomenon. For more than two centuries weddings, accessions to office, and bereavements were an ever flowing fountain of poetical inspiration. Occasional poems or sketches were often printed; sometimes very simply, but more often typographically well-designed, on good-quality paper, in colourful (or sober black) paper cover, with beautiful engravings. Occasional poetry for weddings often included one or more songs to be sung at the wedding. They usually contain directions like ‘to the tune of O Come, all ye faithful’ or another well-known song, but in a few rare cases the score is also printed. The oldest known instance is at the same time the most spectacular: Theodoor Rodenburg had an allegorical sketch printed for the wedding of Lucas van Valckenburgh and Susanna Koeymans in 1619, with a song added on a large separate sheet of paper, containing both the text and a five-part musical arrangement. The composer is not mentioned by name, but from the initials N.V. written underneath each part and the motto ‘Geluckigh die op den Val-let’ (Happy is the man who pays attention to the melody) we may deduce that he was Nicolaas Vallet. What makes the score unusual is the way in which the five different parts of the music have been laid out on the paper: if the sheet was laid flat on the table the five singers, surrounding it, could all read their own parts, the ‘bassus’, whose music is printed in the middle of the paper, apparently having to read and sing over the shoulder of the ‘quintus’. The name of the printer Paulus Aertsz van Ravesteyn at Amsterdam is repeated on the actual sheet, which may indicate that the song could also be acquired separately by people keen on singing.

Literature

• A. Hyatt King. Four hundred years of music printing. London 1979, p. 18
• L.P. Grijp, 'The ensemble music of Nicolaes Vallet', in: Proceedings of the international lute symposium Utrecht 1986. Utrecht 1988, p. 64-85.