Sunday the 10th of January 2010

Today I performed some pieces and talked with the public in the Concertcafé Odeon in Zwolle, as the first guest in a new informal series.

After I played two opening pieces, a conversation started about Schubert, Herman van Veen, Selma Meerbaum Eisinger and my mother.  The presenter Roeland Kooijmans did a lot of homework about me and thus the conversation also included Gypsies, how to make plans and the bones of Beethoven (*).  In between the conversations I played a piece of music relating to the story just discussed, and in the end the public was invited to participate in a quiz where they could prove their knowledge of music and so win two theatre tickets.

 (*) to illustrate:  I explained about the visit which Herman van Veen and I brought to Schubert’s grave at the Zentral Friedhof in Vienna.  We wanted to place our CD, with songs by Schubert, next to the grave, as blessing.

Schubert’s neighbour in this enormous cemetery is Beethoven and while standing there I came to the shocking realisation that these people with their beautiful heritage in music were also just ‘ordinary people’, and that their bones are lying there.

 Like two naughty children, Herman and I sneaked through the bushes to the back of the grave where we placed our CD.

 The visiting Japanese tourists with their zealous cameras probably will not have understood what was happening. 

 I wonder if maybe the gardener has found the CD and whether he has listened to it.  Maybe it is still lying there after 15 years.

Anyway, there was more than enough to talk about.

I shall be glad to do something like this again, I found it great.