Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck: The Orpheus of Amsterdam
Pieter Dirksen
English translation.
ISBN: 978-90-9041698-4. 266 pages. 210x150x18mm.
Uitgeverij Caecilia, Culemborg, 2026.

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1561-1621) has been hailed as the finest composer from the Northern Netherlands. Based in Amsterdam, his fame as an organ and harpsichord player and composer was legendary, but it was as a teacher that he was most influential, gathering a large number of students, particularly from Germany, who, on their return, helped to found the influential 17th-century North German organ school that eventually led to Dietrich Buxtehude and influenced Johann Sebastian Bach. Pieter Dirksen is a renowned authority on the music and life of Sweelinck, both as a performer and a scholar. Together with Harald Vogel, he edited the Breitkopf edition of Sweelinck’s complete keyboard works, reviewed here. In 2021, on the 400th anniversary of Sweelinck’s death, Pieter Dirksen wrote the original Dutch version of this book, and it has now been published in his own English translation, launched during a February Cambridge Academy of Organ study day. Although there is little available information about Sweelinck’s life, this book reveals what is known about him and places his music within the context of the developing city of Amsterdam.

After an Introduction, successive chapters reveal information on The Orpheus of Amsterdam,
Gerrit Pieterszoon and the 1606 portrait, Chansons and Madrigals, Psalms, Cantiones Sacrae, Keyboard Music, Organs, Harpsichords and Virginals, followed by a detailed investigation of Four Keyboard Works. The book concludes with a Catalogue, Select Bibliography,
Glossary, Notes, Illustrations, Index of Names, and an Index of Works Discussed. That rather dry account of the book’s sections doesn’t do justice to the wealth of information contained within the chapters. Every page seems to reveal what, to me, at least, is a new revelation, not just about Sweelinck and his music, but about the complex history of Amsterdam and the Netherlands of the time.

To give some examples, Dirksen brings his investigative skill to bear on working out a more accurate analysis of Sweelinck’s date of birth, narrowing it down to “the summer or early autumn of 1561, but in any case, before 16 October of that year”, rather than the often quoted 1562. For those like me who are only marginally familiar with the complex goings-on in the Netherlands at these times, Dirksen gives a very readable account of the religious turmoil during Sweelink’s lifetime, as the Catholicism of the Habsburg Spanish Netherlands gave way to the Calvinism of a newly independent nation. The spectacular organs of Amsterdam were only saved from destruction by Calvinist iconoclasm because they were owned by the city council, not the church authorities. Although they were no longer used during church services, the city organists played before and after services, playing variations on the new Geneva Psalm melodies and giving public recitals.

This compact and sturdily-made book is beautifully illustrated in full colour. It is a book to keep by your music scores or desk. It is a book you will want to refer to many times, whether your interest is in Sweelinck the organ and harpsichord composer, or the master of vocal composition. The book can be ordered from this website.