Ruud de Wild presents the most beautiful Dutch songs since the year 1300 (we chose 10)

André Hazes stood in a centuries-long tradition. There is a direct line fromthe love-faithfulness he praised in ‘She believes in me’ to the eternalhappiness that was poetically described by Joost van den Vondel three and ahalf centuries earlier in the words: ever found in the world…” Both of thembrought an ode to unconditional love, however much their choice of wordsdiffered. Hazes would never have ventured into the image of ‘two souls,glowing forged together’, while Vondel probably would not have held out theprospect of ‘a future for both of us’. But the feelings were the same.

Exhibition

Ruud de Wild, Songbook. Travel along the most beautiful Dutch songs.Exhibition until 5 March in Huis van het Boek, The Hague. The accompanyingbook was published by Walburg Pers (€20.99). Inl: huisvanhetboek.nl

This unexpected connection between Hazes and Vondel is made plausible in theexhibition Ruud de Wild, Songbook. Travel along the most beautiful Dutchsongs in the House of the Book museum in The Hague – also known by its formername Meermanno. The visitor is promised “a journey through the most beautifulDutch songs”, which is somewhat chafing with the un-Dutch word Songbook inthe title. This use of language probably bears the traces of the radio DJ Ruudde Wild, who acts here as guest curator and namesake. But there is hardly anyfurther popularization. By means of pamphlets from earlier times, sheet musicfrom the twentieth century and many open song bundles behind glass, theexhibition shows how the popular Dutch song has developed over the centuries.How it sometimes renewed itself. And how it – more often – reverted totraditional themes. It is not for nothing that the display is notchronological, but thematic. So that all the songs about love can be foundtogether in one room. Just like all the songs about religion, parties, sailorsand six other subjects.

The material has been collected by historians Garrelt Verhoeven and Martine deBruin, who clearly know more about it than De Wild. They were also able tomake use of groundbreaking research carried out twenty years ago by the nowdeceased song expert Louis Peter Grijp. This showed that many texts that havebeen mentioned as poems in historiography for many hundreds of years wereoriginally written for singing. So they are not poems, but songs.

Grijp discovered that it was very common at the time to write lyrics toexisting melodies. There was even a word for such texts set to existing musicthat is not in the Van Dale, but does have its own Wikipedia entry:contrafacts. For example, the thirteenth-century poet Hadewijch, whose poetryhas been preserved, can now also be admired for the songs she wrote. Just likeVondel, by the way. His immortal stanzas about marital fidelity (and also, forexample, about ‘Christmas night fairer than the days’) were not intended forsolemn declamation, as the theater tradition dictates, but to serve as hymns.Conclusion: many of Vondel’s verses are also songs.

10 standout songs on Ruud de Wild, Songbook

1 Hadewijch If this new year ignites us (thirteenth century)

Little is known about the poet Hadewijch. She may have been a beguine, but shedidn’t limit herself to religious or mystical poems. Her poetry is wonderfullyversatile. See, for example, this New Year’s Eve song, whose medieval titlesimply stands for “When the New Year Begins.” A new year also means thateveryone will soon start hoping for the coming of the season of love,according to Hadewijch. And when the time has come, the many lovers will alsopresent themselves again – those who are going to suck in “the sweet love”.

Use of the minuses, that’s a game That no one does ghetonen and mach. And even though dies ceremony was not allowed then, Hine const understand dies noe and plach: How minne don’t want minne ende el From all that he bescen that thought. That magnifying glass and es not so fast So of minuses, loupe es in of minuses.

2 GA Bredero Most animals rest at night (1622)

The popular poet and playwright GA Bredero was a seventeenth-century writerwho excelled in singing about love – with or without an amorous ending. Inthis song he describes the sad fate of a young lover who wanders lonelythrough the streets at night while “mercifully my dear” peacefully sleeping.Just as peaceful as the animals mentioned in the title.

I see it drifting swish I see the bright Moon, I see I have to stay Just stand in despair! Oh dear, want to rub me With comforting admonition!

Bredero’s singing involuntarily evokes the atmosphere of Ramses Shaffy, whofollowed a similar route three and a half centuries later. But in his song “tIs stil in Amsterdam’ he left the animals unmentioned.

3 Valerius Merck still how strong (1626)

Adriaen Valerius was a civil servant, later alderman and patrician – but bestknown as a poet. His best-known work was the collection _Dutch Gedenck clanck_in which he recorded a large number of beggar songs – partly of his own making– for eternity. This resounding example is about the relief of Bergen op Zoomduring the Eighty Years’ War.

Merck how sterck now int werck sich already put! Who’s all ty Soo fought our freedom: See how he slaves, digs and drags with violence! For our goods and our blood and our cities.

4 Joost van den Vondel Waer became more loyal (1637)

Vondel wrote this verse for his play Gijsbrecht van Aemstel, as an ode to theconjugal love between lord of the castle Gijsbrecht and his wife Badeloch. Heput his noble words in the mouth of the Rey van Burghzaten, the choir ofcastle residents that comments on the fears Badeloch has to endure while herGijsbrecht defends the city of Amsterdam against the Kennemers and theWaterlanders.

Where did the righteous become faithful than between man and woman in the world ever found? Two souls glowing forged together or wired and connected in love and sorrow.

5 Author unknown Lord Halewijn (1838)

Lord Halewijn sang a song all who heard that wanted to be with him

And a royal child heard that She was so beautiful and so loved.

Zi stood before her father: ‘Oh, father, may I go to Halewijn?’

‘Oh no, thou daughter, no, thou not: They go, and don’t turn back!’

Thus the opening lines of a famous ballad that had already circulated in theMiddle Ages before a more or less definitive version was published in 1838.The song tells how sweet-voiced Halewijn seduces a king’s daughter into theforest with him, where she discovers that he has bloodthirsty plans for her.But she manages to behead the serial killer and returns home victorious. __

There was held a banquet The head was placed on the table.

6 JH Speenhoff The civic guard/Here come the civic guards (1903)

Anyone who can effortlessly clap along to this marching rhythm, but who hasnever really paid attention to the lyrics, might think that the poet-singer JHSpeenhoff wrote a song of praise about the then civilian militia of Rotterdam.Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, the armored Speenhoff wasmaking fun of the militia of the time. ” Here come the shooters, here theycome”_is not the correct text – it reads: ” Here come the gunmen, they areparalyzed.” Because only with the help of a hearty gulp came “the maleputters of Rotterdam”_ in action.

Here come the guards, they are paralyzed, the male putters From Rotterdam! Oh what a glitter! What guts do they make! That comes from the bitter And the sense of duty.

7 Jean-Louis Pisuisse Man dare to live (1917)

Immortal motto of the Dutch cabaret: take matters into your own hands, don’tlet others tell you what to do and what to believe. The text was written bythe timber merchant Dirk Witte, who, according to experts, lived such abourgeois life that it seemed as if he had meant those stinging words forhimself – so bourgeois was his existence. The first version is written bymaster comedian Jean-Louis Pisuisse, and Ramses Shaffy also sang it many yearslater. Just like Wende Snijders and many others.

Life is wonderful, life is beautiful but – fly out into the sky, and don’t crawl into a cage man, dare to live! Your head in the air, your nose in the wind And don’t give a damn how anyone else thinks it! Keep a heart full of warmth and love in your chest But be a monarch on your square meter! What you seek no one else can give you! Man, dare to live!

8 Annie MG Schmidt and Harry Bannink On a Beautiful Whitsun Day (1965)

Hundreds of other songs could just as well have been in this place, becausethe oeuvre of Annie MG Schmidt (text) and Harry Bannink (music) is almostinexhaustible. What they all have in common is a typically Dutch pitch inwhich a laconic kind of lyricism combines sublimely with perspective, ironyand recognisability. Two fathers sing about how their daughters will one daybreak free from paternal authority:

She could be pregnant tomorrow it’s still possible today it could be from the wallpaper or be a French singer or someone from The Hague…

9 André Hazes She Believes in Me (1980)

Call it a life song or a love song. André Hazes himself, the best blues singerin the Netherlands, described his genre as ‘life pop’. He exchanged thetraditional accordion waltzes for the catchy pop rhythms of his generation andthus created a sound all his own. After his death, ‘She believes in me’ grewinto the title song of a much-watched documentary and a much-visited musical.In fact, this song is also a contra-fact, because Hazes wrote the lyrics tothe existing ‘She believes in me’ by American singer-songwriter Steve Gibb.

she was sleeping, I asked her last night “Wait for me” Maybe I’ll be free earlier tonight She nodded yes But she knows me (oh yeah) Now I’m standing in front of you I lingered in the pub again…

10 Maarten van Roozendaal Don’t Save Me (2000)

Your heaven is hell to me A heaven with you is hell to me.

A fiery start to this new century: the free-spirited song of Maarten vanRoozendaal, who died much too early. Let everyone adhere to a faith of theirown choosing, says the text:

Put a rock under your pillow Burn a candle for me Slaughter a lamb But don’t save me.

This singer is not waiting for redemption from a higher power: