a Lutheran clergyman who studied in Germany.
Jan Frans did not pursue a military music career. In 1752 he was registered as an ambtenaar (civil servant) of the VOC. In 1758 he was a clerk in the consumer goods registration office in Calpetty, opposite the Dutch stronghold of Tutucorin, India. In 1759 and 1762 he was sworn in as secretary (keeper of secrets) of the magistrate of police. In 1770 he oversaw the arreek trade in Colombo, involving the buying, storing and selling of areca palm tree nuts, used for the manufacture of sirih, which people all over Asia like to chew. Two years later he was a fiscaal (a magistrate in the local courthouse), secretary and bookkeeper in Tutucorin. In 1776 he was registered as an onderkoopman, a junior merchant serving a VOC director of trade (opperkoopman). In 1783 he was a fiscaal and cashier in the southern Ceylonese province of Galle. Four years later he was Galle's general overseer of trade, possessing a coat of arms and a motto: Depressa Resurgo (I rise from the depths). He had not, however, risen to the highest ranks. When he died (1788), he had eight grandchildren. In 1796 the British took over Ceylon. The island's European establishment, including the Gratiaens, became anglicised.
In 1792 Redeneeringen over nuttige muzikaale onderwerpen (Argumentations about Useful Musical Subjects), attributed to Jan Frans Gratiaen appeared posthumously as a large chapter in Volume Six of the Verhandelingen (Journal or Yearbook) of the Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen (Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences). In her 2001 dissertation, De Taal der Hartstochten (The Language of the Passions), Els Strategier states that Gratiaen literally copied the work from the original by Jacob Lustig (1706-1796). Born in Hamburg, Germany, Lustig was the long-time organist of the Protestant Martini church in Groningen in the Netherlands. He wrote in Dutch.
Lustig's Twaalf Redeneringen over Nuttige Muzikale Onderwerpen (Twelve Argumentations about Useful Musical Subjects) were published in 1756 in twelve monthly instalments and afterwards compiled and sold as a book. A prime mover of music criticism and inventor of the music magazine, Lustig spotted the widening gap between composers and audiences and he tackled all relevant musical questions. Lustig was the best possible Dutch language source for Gratiaen to study through copying.
In his foreword Gratiaen mentioned that he had attended opera performances at the Monnaie theatre (opened in 1700) in Brussels. In Paris he had met the famous violin teacher and virtuoso Jean-Marie Leclair. He complained about the predicament i.e. virtual absence of western concert music in Ceylon. Getting hold of Lustig's work when he had already spent many years in the East, the new ideas presented there must have reminded Gratiaen how swiftly western music was developing, while he himself could not participate.
Did Gratiaen himself want his manuscript to be published? Son-in-law Willem Sebastiaan Boers, married to Gratiaen's youngest daughter, Johanna Gerrardina, was a relative of Frederik Willem Boers, a staff lawyer of Iman Wilhelm Falck, the Governor of Ceylon. Willem S. Boers was co-opted as a member of the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences. When the Society's editorial board was in desperate need of material for its 1792 issue, Boers may have suggested publishing Gratiaen's manuscript. Printing copied manuscripts, often anonymously, was still common practise for the sake of propagating ideas and notions considered important. It would have been too late for Boers to check the origins of his father-in-law's manuscript. Or perhaps Boers was instructed by the Gratiaen family in Ceylon. In any case, Batavia's learned men were unable to recognize an existing text. Just the same, the Gratiaen name lives on to stimulate creative writing.
Lutgard Mutsaers
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