Jacob van Eyck (1589-1657) is undeniably one of the most important musical personalities of the Dutch Golden Age, perhaps the most important after Sweelinck. The blind-born squire was Utrecht's city carillonneur, campanologist, carillon technician, recorder virtuoso and composer (Der fluyten lust-hof). The curious thing is that until recently, nothing was known about the first half of his life (a period of thirty years!). The earliest sign of life dated from 1619. Van Eyck then lived in Heusden, where he manifested himself as an expert on carillon and bells.

Musicologist Thiemo Wind, who completed his PhD on Van Eyck's recorder music in 2006, has now reconstructed those first 30 years. He was able to do this after former Heusden archivist Hildo van Engen discovered that Jacob arrived in Heusden in 1618 with church attestation from Bergen op Zoom. This document led to the discovery of new facts: Van Eyck was almost certainly born in 1589, possibly in Heusden but more likely in The Hague. He grew up in Bergen-op-Zoom, presumably in the family of his uncle Johan Bacx, who was a military governor there. From the age of 15, he must have been servant to the tower clockmaker Pyeter Heyndrickxsen, who must have received a fee to literally take the blind squire by the hand and gropingly introduce him to the complex world of the automatic playing drum and carillon. Van Eyck received an orphan's pension from the Council of State with which to finance those apprenticeships. Wind was able to find only one document from this early period in the Bergen op Zoom archives that actually mentions Van Eyck: the minutes book of the church council, which records his profession of faith on 29 March 1614 (see image).

Wind's 56-page publication ‘Jacob van Eyck before 1619: a Reconstruction’ has appeared in issue 3 of the yearbook Carillon and Bell Culture in the Low Countries (in Dutch), published by Amsterdam University Press, open access and thus downloadable free of charge (via this link). It nicely complements the three monographs dedicated to Jacob van Eyck published by the KVNM in the Music Historical Monographs series, the first by Dick van den Hul, the second by Ruth van Baak Griffioen, the last by Thiemo Wind.