August 23, 2018 marked the 400th anniversary of the death of the famous writer Bredero. To commemorate, Dutch scientist Jeroen Jansen put together an exhibition and a walking tour. He drew on his own research for this.
He was a true Amsterdammer and comparable to André Hazes, king of the song of life. Young and old, chic or popular, everyone loved the work of Gerbrand Adriaenszoon Bredero (1585-1618). This writer of songs, poems and plays passed away completely unexpectedly and with writing plans still in full swing on August 23, 1618, only 33 years old.
In order not to let this pass unnoticed, Dutch scholar Jeroen Jansen (University of Amsterdam) has set up a small exhibition with students about Bredero's life, his work and the appreciation the writer received for it, up to our time. Jansen has been researching Bredero for years, which is also reflected in his choice of objects for this exhibition at the Special Collections in the Allard Pierson Museum. NEMO Kennislink walks with him along the showcases.
Nice voices
When you enter the small exhibition space, there are three display cases with old books and prints. Posters of Bredero's stage performances from the last century hang on one wall. Perhaps minimal at first glance, but the exhibition is not complete without the accompanying apps, according to Jansen.
“The app is also an audio tour of the exhibition. In addition to extra information, Bredero's work is sung to music and recited with nice voices, including my own, which really brings the work to life. And you can continue to use all items from the app in education after the exhibition has ended.”
There is also an app with a Bredero site walk, ending at the Special Collections at the Allard Pierson Museum. The exhibition has an extra low threshold:it's free and you can just walk in to relax and get extra information about Bredero.
Research
Jansen is currently studying Bredero's childhood friend and publisher Cornelis Lodewijcksz vander Plasse (1585-1641). This is also reflected in the exhibition, where Vander Plasse plays an important role. The first edition of the Klucht van de Molenaar from 1618 is an example of this. Jansen investigates the relationship between this publication by fellow townsman Niclaes Verberg and the publication by Vander Plasse a year later.
“In the seventeenth century you didn't have copyright yet. This farce was first published by Verberg, and they didn't take it too seriously. Where Bredero's regular publisher Vander Plasse was very accurate in rendering Bredero's texts and reproduced them exactly as the writer intended, Verberg left out passages and used the dialect less strongly. Letters show that Van der Plasse was furious about the sloppy edition and rightly so, because it was Bredero's use of language that made the texts."
Vander Plasse was therefore not angry about the stealing work; that was common and he did it himself. For his collected plays, All the plays from 1638, he used the title engravings of a Rotterdam publisher and put his own name in them.
Friendship
We know little about Bredero as a person, and much of what we do know is due to the collecting fervor and dedication of his childhood friend. Jansen:“More than half of the work we now own was published by Vander Plasse after Bredero's death. He also added letters to this so that we know a little more about Bredero's life. For example, he was often in love and always with rich or socially high-ranking, so unreachable women. His proposals always come to nothing, which is sad.”
Bredero also wrote extensively about love, a popular topic at the time. Books with wise love lessons - not from personal experience but age-old clichés -, song books and plays. These books were in great demand. The songbooks, for example, so small that they fit in your pocket, sold so well that Bredero couldn't get a copy himself. “This copy from 1621 was already the fourth edition, none of the earlier editions has survived.”
Bad painter
Bredero might be popular and – especially in Amsterdam – famous, he was by no means rich and the coveted women passed him by. Writing in the seventeenth century earned little or nothing. Jansen:“As an author you only earned money if you dedicated your work to a wealthy person or wrote on behalf of someone with money. The proceeds of the entrance tickets to plays went to charity.”
Bredero probably earned his money from painting, which was his actual profession. Because he was barely mentioned as a painter in his day and nothing of him has survived, Jansen thinks he could have been no more than a dime a dozen painter. It is nice that paintings have been made with Bredero's work as subject, such as Moortje, of which a copy can be seen.
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Everyday problems
Bredero became so famous because he was an innovative writer, according to Jansen. No pompous classics, but conversations between popular people, often greatly exaggerated and in dialect, about everyday recognizable problems, were the first for him to come up for discussion. “Bredero wrote many short, funny farces. He has also tried to create comic drama at a higher level, such as the Spanish Brabander from 1617, but here too it is about ordinary people and their lives. As for the plot lines, the pieces are not that special, but because of all those characters who wanted to tell something about themselves and their daily lives.”
The people loved it. Until 1610 you had to be a member of the chamber of rhetoric, a kind of center for arts and sciences, to watch plays. But from the moment the doors opened to everyone, it was a storm, according to Jansen. “A ticket cost 2.5 stuivers, which was also affordable for poorer people. In 1616 the stage earned over two thousand guilders for charity, which was an incredible amount of money at the time.”
Bredero died unexpectedly in 1618. One of his funeral poems, poems dedicated to a deceased person, states that he "suddenly collapsed to the ground." Because there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding his death, Jansen thinks it is heart failure, but opinions are divided on this. At least 26 funeral poems have been written for him, which was an extraordinary number. “Vander Plasse must have actively lobbied to get all these corpses together. He then spent them, to put his friend extra in the market. We succeeded, because Bredero's work remained popular."
Listen
As mentioned, his songs also sold like hot cakes. In those days it was normal for songbooks to be filled with work by different authors. That Bredero was able to publish a song book with only his own work at such a young age was remarkable for that time. “His 'bursting' songs in dialect were meant for laughter and are also about everyday people. They were popular in all walks of life. From the elite to people who could not read, but who sang along to the fullest. The lyrics were new, but the melodies were well known.”
With this exhibition and the accompanying app with information and songs, Jansen mainly wants people to enjoy Bredero's use of language. “It's flowery, he uses new words, dialect. It is the most important thing we have now and what makes Bredero so special. And actually you should not read but hear Bredero, only then you will notice how much more visually rich his work is compared to that of other writers of his time. How beautiful that language sounded, that is the ultimate strength of Bredero.”