Herman van Veen plays in Emmen as if he has never been away. Jacques d’Ancona sees no crack | review ★★★★★

Solid, striking, relaxed in its dynamics. That is explainable. “You dance in stocking feet. That’s how you stay young for your age,” he claims. Beats. The organ in his voice sounds as it always has. Not a crack, not a tear to be seen. Fierce in the incendiary melodies of a gypsy, strong in his timing of crazy stories and hilarious anecdotes.

Last bus

He is a compelling storyteller and also the musician of the genre, who has made an emotional contract with the four outstanding instrumentalists who surround him. He is in solidarity with them. They each get some solos, while he retreats behind the grand piano to concentrate on the creation of an Italian opera diva and then the song Hilversum III organically connects with the sweet nursery rhyme The Seven Jump or Circles sings in a refined arrangement. An encore is already in the first act. He used to put these in an endless finale so people missed their last bus home.

Massage parlour

When Van Veen recently received an oeuvre prize for the umpteenth time, he called it ‘an encouragement.’ There is no saved quasi glamor behind it. The show typifies his intention to take the great classical composers to this time. This creates a connection with new texts, current repertoire and you hear surprisingly sharp, subdued versions of well-known songs. Of course there are traces of a distant past, but he has contained the clownish scenes, as if he has more to do and wants to add color to contrasts. He succeeds when he exchanges the frightening tempo for a calm reflection on the powerlessness with which we look at the inexplicable relationship between oil prices and refugees. Motto: It won’t be true…

Herman van Veen loves exotic rhythms and rolls. However, also of a mad encounter with the ridiculous, smug doctor. The same man he later discovers compromising in a massage parlor. His strides and hops, the confetti from the hood, the start of a dance, it’s all there. Maybe a bit smaller in size, now. Yes. But we have never heard the splashing parody of an echoing voice from the Amsterdam Jordaan before.