van Eyck: Der Fluyten Lust-hof for Descant Recorder - Volume 1

When I first heard, thanks to a remarkable black and white film of a very young Frans Bruggen performing Van Eyck’s variations of Pavanne Lacrimae, I did not know any thing about the piece, Van Eyck, or that the composer of the melody was John Dowland. It was simply the most beautiful and haunting and even spiritual use of the recorder I had yet heard. Years later, I took a small collection of solo recorder music by a musician named Van Eyck home from a local music store, and…there it was! I am almost unbearably thrilled to have the complete Amadeus collection (I purchased all three volumes). There is only one thing that would make it better: The notes describing the pieces that are the themes/origins of the variations are only in Dutch and not translated into English. I am performing this music for residents in a retirement home here in Missoula, and would so like to be able to tell the orphans of the middle passage something about the stories of the melodies and which countries or traditions they come from.

This book provides an excellent collection of pieces to practice by yourself. The tunes have lots of scale runs and repetitive patterns to get your fingers working and improve fluency. Van Eyck was a blind Dutch player who used to improvise variations on popular tunes.Whoever wrote them down did us a favour!

These pieces are short and fun to play. I love feeling the connection to history. Highly recommended.

Van Eyck - what can I say? It's the ultimate recorder book. If you are a beginner, play the melody and when you're adventures enough you move on to the rest of the modes. Highly recommended!

Brilliant - really interesting to play this music. I would recommend as can be done on tenor as well.