Hieke Meppelink: soprano
Sytse Buwalda:  altus
Nico van der Meel: tenor
Marcel Moester: bass
Saskia Coolen: kljunasta flavta, recorder, viol
Erik Beijer: fiddle, viol
Louis Peter Grijp:  lute, cittern
 

Programme:
Four polyphonic Souterliedekens

Gherardus Mes (fl. 1561):
Souterliedekens V Het achste musyck boeck (1561):
Psalm 35: Die boose sprack in zijn ghedacht

Jacobus Clemens non Papa (ca. 1510 / 15 – 1555 / 6):
Souter Liedekens I. Het vierde musyck boexken (1556):
Psalm 35: Die boose sprack in zijn ghedacht

Jacobus Clemens non Papa (ca.1510 / 15 – 1555 / 6):
Souter Liedekens IIII. Het sevenste musyck boexken (1557):
Den lof sanc, der glorioser maget, ende moeder ons Heeren

Gherardus Mes (fl. 1561):
Souterliedekens V Het achste musyck boeck (1561):
Psalm 39: Ick heb verwacht den Heere

 
Three times Souterliedeken 4 (psalm 4)

Monophonic version:
Als ick riep met verlangen (1540)

Jacobus Clemens non Papa (ca. 1510/15 – 1555/6):
Souter Liedekens I. Het vierde musyck boexken (1556):
Psalm 4: Als ick riep met verlangen

Gherardus Mes:
Souterliedekens V Het achste musyck boeck (1561):
Psalm 4: Als ick riep met verlangen

Tilman Susato: Derde Musyck Boexken
(III, 1551)
Entre du fol / Le joly boys / Den VII. ronde. Il estoit une fillette / Den hoboecken dans / La morisque

Psalms of the Calvinists

Nicolas Vallet (ca. 1583 – ca. 1646):
Psalm 12: Donne secours, Seigneur, il en est heure (1615)

Jan Pietersz Sweelinck (1562-1621):
Psalm 23: Mon Dieu me paist sous sa puissance haute (1604)

Jacob van Eyck (ca. 1590 – 1657):
Der Fluyten Lust-hof (1648):
Psalm 33

Jan Pietersz Sweelinck (1562-1621):
Psalm 68: Que Dieu se monstre seulement (1621)

Hymns of the Mennonites

Anonymus:
T'was een maechdeken van teder leden (1570)

Hymns of the Calvinists:

Jacob Cats (1577-1660):
Ziel-sucht, gepast op het hoogen en vallen van de Musicq
Vierde Nieuw-jaers Liedt
Gesang voor een Krijgsman op Schiltwagt staende
Klaegh-liedt van Thamar

Jan Pietersz Sweelinck (1562-1621):
Onder de lindegroen

Hymns of the Catholics

Jan Baptist Stalpart vd Wielen (1579-1630)
Marius en Martha met

Guillelmus de Swaen (+1674):
Ick groet U, Sint Gregori

Jan Baptist Stalpart vd Wielen (1579-1630):
O diere schat! (St. Alexius)

Jan Baptist Stalpart vd Wielen (1579-1630):
God wou dat ons een Duyf besloot (St. Colomba)
 

About the Programme:
In this program not only the psalms can be heard, but also the secular tunes to which the Souterliedekens were written. Most famous is the so-called Antwerp Songbook (1544), the first major printed song collection of the Netherlands. It contains beautiful medieval ballads about tragic love affairs as well as new songs from the Rethoricians with their virtuoso rhyme technique. As the Antwerp Songbook did not contain music notation, we have to turn to religious songbooks for the tunes, especially to the (monophonic) Souterliedekens.

Most of the music from this program was published in Antwerp, the flourishing book printing centre of the Netherlands in that time. The polyphonic Souterliedekens were published by Tilman Susato, who was a city musician himself. In 1551 he started a series of “Musyckboecxkens” (music books) with a call for new music in the Dutch language, in order to show that Dutch music “in our mother tongue” was not less than music in French, Italian or Latin. This humanist plea for the native language in music coincided with a strong literary movement to develop the Dutch language into a fully fledged literary vehicle. Susato’s first two books of the series contained secular music by Dutch and Flemish composers, both amourous songs and comical songs about marginal inhabitants of the city, like whores and beggars. His third book was instrumental dance music, probably suggesting another aspect of folk live, although most of the tunes have French titles.
Although Susato’s initiative was probably not commercially succesful, it was copied by others, like the Maastricht publisher Jacob Baethen. His collection Niewe Duytsche Liedekens (New Dutch Songs, 1554) included even better secular music than Susato’s example, composed by such masters as Clemens non Papa and the local but excellent composer Loduvicus Episcopius. The latter wrote several pieces based on folk life, as a loud drinking song and a six-part composition which may be called the Cries of Louvain, about a student who cannot concentrate on his working because of the street cries entering through the open window.
Louis Peter Grijp

Primoz Trubar published Ta celi psalter Davidov in 1566, the same year that Petrus Datheen published the complete Psalter in Dutch, rhymed to the famous French or rather Genevan melodies by Loys Bourgeois, Mr Pierre and others. Both Trubar and Datheen worked in a tradition that started with the Souterliedekens, published in Antwerp in 1540. The Souterliedekens were the first complete psalter published in any European vernacular. The poet, the Utrecht nobleman Willem van Zuylen van Nyevelt, chose 150 different popular tunes for the psalms, so that the youth would be motivated to sing the Holy Psalms instead of all kind of silly and lusty song texts.
The Souterliedekens were an enormous succes. Dozens of reprints appeared and the Souterliedekens were sung by all Protestant demonimations, and even by some Catholics, although they were suspected by the Catholic Church. But when the Calvinist Datheen had his psalm translation published, the Souterliedekens became more and more restricted to the Dutch and Flemish Mennonites. In the 17th century they were completely superseded by the Datheen Psalter.
The Souterliedekens were also a succes from a musical point of view. The notation of 150 different popular melodies had been quite a challenge, and the result was a most attractive collection of tunes. The famous church musician Jacobus Clemens non Papa set all the Souterliedekens for three voices, which were published in four books by the Antwerp town musician and composer Tilman Susato (1551). These beautiful settings are a landmark in European music history, but they are rarely performed because of the Dutch language, which is regarded as unpronouncable by foreign singers. A pupil of Clemens non Papa, the lesser known Gherardus Mes, also composed a cycle with all Souterliedekens, but this time for four voices (1562). The difference is remarkable: instead of Clemens' slightly archaic settings Mes presented them as actual mid-sixteenth century music, supplanting the old modal melodies by more modern ones.
This tradition of Dutch psalm settings reached a zenith with the compositions of Jan Pietersz Sweelinck, the famous organ player from Amsterdam. He set all 150 psalms for 4 or more voices in virtuoso counterpoint, using the French texts and melodies. 

 Bio:
Camerata Trajectina ('Utrecht music company', set up in 1974) has made a name for itself performing early Dutch music. The group's repertoire deals chiefly with themes and individuals from Dutch history. The ensemble took part in many National Commemorations, from the Union of Utrecht (1979) to the Dutch East India Company (2002). A special theme is the relationship between painting and music, in connection with the exhibitions e.g. about Jan Steen (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1996) and Frans Hals and his contemporaries (Haarlem 2004). The ensemble has given hundreds of concerts in the Netherlands (including many appearances in the Utrecht Early Music Festival), Belgium and other European countries, in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Indonesia and Ghana. Camerata Trajectina has recorded more than 20 CDs for the labels Globe and Philips Classics.