He was born around May 1562 in Deventer, to the east of Amsterdam; his musician father, Pieter Swybertszoon, had married Elsken Jansdochter Sweling, daughter of the town surgeon, in 1558. When Jan was only a year or two old they moved to Amsterdam which at that time was no more than a modest village. Pieter Swybertszoon was appointed organist of the Church of St Nicholas, the Oude Kerk, in 1566, or possibly earlier, and laid the foundation of an organist dynasty, which, through his son and grandson, would last virtually unbroken for nearly a hundred years. The family’s financial circumstances were hardly flourishing and could have had a detrimental effect on their son’s development as one of the greatest musicians of his age, but he had the good fortune to attract the attention of the parish priest at the Oude Kerk, Jacob Buyck, who undertook the boy’s education himself. It is more than likely that this was paid for by the city fathers, through the offices of his Alderman brother, Joost. Buyck was a learned man and a staunch Catholic who, just before the Alteration of conversion to Calvinism in 1578, left Amsterdam, unable to accept the new religion. Although Sweelink was pragmatic enough to adopt the new faith which Buyck had inculcated in him, His Cantiones Sacrae of 1619 are based on plainchant and his son Dirck, during his tenure of the post of organist at Oude Kerk, was censured for trying to introduce certain ‘popish’ elements into the worship. Although those connected to the Inquisition were chased out of town, the monasteries and convents were left untouched, and there was a much greater sense of religious tolerance than elsewhere. Religious and political life were not riven with the machinations and intrigue that beset England, for instance, during this period.
Of his musical education, which undoubtedly began under his father, little is known, it is possible he studied with Jan Willemszoon Lossy, a town musician (but not an organist) in Haarlem. Haarlem is about 15 miles from Amsterdam and it would been out of the question for the boy to make the journey on a regular basis. Here we might also have come under the influence of Floris van Aldrichen, a noted player at the Baavokerk, and Claas Albrechtszoon van Wieringen. Documentary evidence confirms Sweelinck as organist at the Oude Kerk from 1581, but it is possible he was performing this role as early as 1577. His father had died in 1573 and his immediate successor lasted only a matter of months. In November 1577 another organist was buried in the church and maybe the city fathers, who had taken an active interest in the education of the boy, felt that the 15 year old was ready to step into his father’s shoes. Calvinism saw no place for the organ in worship, and new churches often had no provision for an instrument. However the many fine existing organs, such as the two instruments by Henrik Niehoff in the Oude Kerk, were the property and responsibility of the town authorities, and a source of considerable pride. Sweelinck’s appointment was, therefore, a civic rather than an ecclesiastical one and, by the standards of his day, his duties were relatively light. He was expected to play for one hour, twice a day, for the edification of visitors to the church (at Leiden, organ recitals were encouraged before and after services to keep people out of the inns and taverns). He was also responsible for the state of the organs but not for their tuning. Unlike many of his colleagues he did not have to play the carillon – described by Charles Burney, the musical chronicler of his ages, as ‘the jingling of bells and ducats’ – nor did he have to play the harpsichord for official functions. His annual salary was 100 gilders, but when his mother died in 1585 this was doubled, as he now had responsibility for his whole family. When, in 1590, he married Claesgen Dircxdochter Puyner from Medemblik it was increased again to 300 gilders and he was also provided with free accommodation. His fame as a player began to spread and visitors to Amsterdam came to the Oude Kerk especially to hear him; he became something of a tourist attraction. The English composer Peter Philips, who was to become a life-long friend, came in 1593 to ‘see and hear an excellent man of his faculties’ (The hapless Philips, a Catholic was promptly arrested and imprisoned in the Hague).
As his reputation as a performer spread he began to attract pupils from all over the continent who helped spread his name throughout Germany, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. Undoubtedly the most important were Samuel Scheidt and Heinrich Scheidemann who laid the foundations for the North German School, which ultimately spawned Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Sebastian Bach. At one point his pupils Ulrich Cernitz, Jacob Praetorius II and Heinrich Scheideman held the three principal organist posts in Hamburg, leading Handel’s friend, the composer and writer Johann Mattheson, to dub him ‘Der Hamburgische Organistenmacher’. He was well paid for his services as a teacher, the fees usually being met by the Town Council of the pupil concerned, and he died a relatively wealthy man.
As well as being an excellent player, Sweelinck also had a good knowledge of organ building (like J.S. Bach) and was often asked to give his opinion on new instruments or restorations. He made visits for this purpose to Haarlem, Deventer, Middleburg, Nijmegen, Harderjik, Rotterdan, Dordrecht and Rhenen – all in the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, from which the Spanish had been driven in 1588. His only trip outside was to Antwerp in 1604, to buy a harpsichord from the firm or Ruckers for the town authorities.
His earliest published works were three volumes of Chansons, which appeared between 1592 and 1594. Beginning in 1604 and ending in the year of hi death in 1621 he published his settings of the entire Genevan Psalter (one set was in use in Switzerlanda, translated into a local dialect, util 1840). In all, he published over 200 vocal works, mostly destined for domestic music making, an important part of Dutch life as depicted in paintings of the period. But this repertoire has, until recently, been largely unknown, with the exception of the ever popular Hodie Christus natus est. Instead his fame has rested almost entirely on his keyboard music, none of which was published in his lifetime and of which autograph copy survives. The works have been transmitted to us through manuscript collections compiled mostly in England (including the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book) and Germany.
Stephen Westrop
(2003)
