The feat of André Rieu

Scene from the movie André Rieu's 75th Birthday Celebration: The Dream Continues - Photo: ImDb

André Rieu's documentary about turning 75 is also extremely frivolous. (After all, what other violinist makes an entire film about his own birthday?)

"He was the kind of person who woke up every morning remembering all his dreams and making them come true," a member of the Johann Strauss Orchestra said of André Rieu in the documentary celebrating the 75th birthday of today's most beloved violinist and conductor, André Rieu's 75th Birthday Celebration: The Dream Continues.

Anyone who has worked with André Rieu has vivid memories of him. What they have in common is that Rieu was crazy, spontaneous, but it was fun to work with him.

A "classic" Rieu act at a concert in Vienna: he let the brass players in the orchestra drink beer and eat dinner while playing music - they clinked glasses before their turn, and when their turn came, they were already a bit tipsy.

It begins at a party of Rieu and the musicians of the Johann Strauss Orchestra on a yacht.

Here, he recalled the times he was received by the King of Bahrain and received a cannon salute. Then, the host began to talk to Rieu and asked him to choose his favorite performances from nearly 40 years of taking the orchestra around the world.

Without needing a private space to reminisce, among a crowd of colleagues, Rieu recalled the theatrical feats he had created: gathering a choir of elderly men to sing When I'm 64;

There were collaborations with Chinese opera artists, Argentine bandoneon artists, ice skaters; there was a golden carriage carrying artists around the stage;

And there were also simpler pieces, like when he returned to his hometown of Maastricht, and before playing music, he talked about his childhood of being forced to study music, then introduced his younger brother who was also playing for the Johann Strauss orchestra.

The most interesting thing about watching the performances that André Rieu creates is often not the performance itself. It is the audience's reaction. They dance along with the pieces. They laugh along with them. They cry along with them.

The faces of the audience seem to be a second stage in Rieu's concerts that he secretly controls, a stage of emotions: surprise, shock, joy, emotion... He is not only the conductor of a stage orchestra, but also the conductor of a symphony of emotions in his thousands of spectators. That is also a feat.

Every year, André Rieu plays to an average of nearly 1 million people. That means there are many people who idolize him. However, there are also many people who can't stand him. André Rieu is too showy, too cheesy, too colorful. It's a performance, not music.

But wasn't the famous composer Johann Strauss II, the classical composer from whom Rieu named his orchestra, also a great entertainer in his own time?

The gap of hundreds of years makes us think that classical music must always be serious and formal, but in fact the waltzes and operettas of the Strausses were loved for their entertainment, their abundant energy.

But seriously or not, it doesn’t matter. In the film, Rieu recalls a memory of being on tour in Bogotá, on a Friday the 13th, and during the performance, the stage had a technical problem. For more than half an hour, the problem was not resolved.

The 14,000-plus spectators who filled the stadium were not at all upset. If necessary, they would have stayed until the next day, just to see the rest of the performance by him and the Johann Strauss Orchestra. And then, in that atmosphere, an 8-year-old boy in the audience suddenly picked up his small flute and played a tune.

The boy's family bought tickets 6 months ago with credit cards, at a price that is not cheap for a middle-class South American family, to be here, to see their idol.

How many violinists can get an 8-year-old flute beginner to stand up and play a piece he's been practicing? If that's not a feat, what is?

HIEN TRANG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/ky-cong-cua-andre-rieu-20250518090250751.htm