He has been dubbed “the Taylor Swift of classical music”, but Andre Rieu sees himself more as the antidote to it. Stuffiness and snobbery go out the window when the Dutch violin virtuoso and conductor hits town. Rieu’s ebullient blend of waltzes, popular songs and playful humour sees his sixty-strong Johann Strauss Orchestra play three-hour concerts to 700,000 delighted people every year.
“Everybody who comes knows they will go home with a smile on their face,” Holland’s amiable King of the Waltz tells me. “I want to make the audience happy, and when they’re happy, I’m happy. That’s the difference between us and the so-called classical music of my father.”
Rieu’s entire career could be seen as a rebellion against his “severe” and unaffectionate father Andries, who conducted Maastricht’s Symphony Orchestra.
“I was in the classical world, but I didn’t like the atmosphere in the concerts,” explains Andre, 75. “In classical music, everything is serious and grim. I’m one of six children and I’m the black sheep. I always wanted things differently. I like to smile, I like humour. Mozart was a fantastic guy. He loved life.”
On tour, lavish sets and eye-catching clothes add to his magic carpet ride of escapism. Female band members wear pastel ball-gowns that wouldn’t look out of place on a Disney princess. And Andre plays Bach and Beethoven with the same enthusiasm as he does the waltzes, saying, “Only music that touches the heart can reach so many.”
His shows sell out all over the world, although some fans get a tad over-enthusiastic. On his recent tour of South America, Rieu started each concert by walking through the audience from behind. Too risky.
“They try and hug me and give me high-fives…they were friendly but I have to get to the stage. There is no time for hugs.”
Playing in Melbourne, Australia, he threw in the Neighbours theme tune and ended up in the soap – arriving in a stretch limo to serenade Jane Hall’s Rebecca Napier.
A gang of Ramsay Street regulars ended up waltzing to The Blue Danube – which is Andre’s hold music when you ring him at home.
“I love to play local music when I tour. We did five or six concerts in Melbourne in 2009, and when the Neighbours producers heard that we played the theme they asked me if I wanted to appear,” the merry maestro recalls. “I said ‘Yes, of course, why not?!’ I can only play myself so they quickly wrote me a storyline and the whole crew came to a concert…”
Can-do Rieu is in a jubilant mood when we speak. “The weather here in Maastricht is perfect and I have a whole month of touring, so I’m a happy man. We’re back to the same number of concerts now as before the pandemic. I’m so glad to be working around the world again.”
He plays England next May with two shows at the OVO Arena, Wembley, and one at Birmingham’s bp pulse LIVE. He’s keeping the details secret – “It’s a surprise for the people” – but the tour is unlikely to be on the scale of his 2008 world stadium jaunt which included a full-sized replica of Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace, with horses, carriages, dancers and fully functioning fountains.
Andre started learning the violin at five, studying his craft at the Conservatoire Royal, the Conservatorium Maastricht and the Music Academy in Brussels. He completed his training with the ‘Premier Prix’ from the Royal Conservatory of Brussels two years after he married language student Marjorie Kochmann in 1975, now his production manager.
It was Marjorie who, in 1978, encouraged him to follow his dreams and start his own 12-strong Maastrichts Salon Orchestra. Fame came 21 years later when Andre bought sixty seconds of live TV time to perform Shostakovich’s Waltz No. 2. during the halftime break in the Ajax vs Bayern Munich match.
“Ajax did me a huge favour and scored just before half time,” he says. “The next week I sold 200,000 CDs.”
Since then Rieu has sold more than 40million CDs and DVDs, notching up 500-plus platinum discs, making him a bona fide musical phenomenon.
He is delighted when I ask what the chances are of his life-story being turned into a biopic. “What an idea! A lot of people are doing that on Netflix… You should find somebody to take it on, Garry! I’m not going to punt this about but you can – The Andre Rieu Story, produced by Garry Bushell.” Deal!
A scaled-down version could become a West End stage show, I suggest. “I’m starting to like this interview very much,” he chuckles.
Marjorie has just finished rebooting her Rieu biography – My Music, My Life – adding extra chapters and photos.
“The most interesting part of my story was the buildup; the new book will include all the successes afterwards. It’s going to be available at Christmas in Dutch, with an English translation to follow.”
Andre turned 75 in October and celebrated by taking everybody who works to him to a fairy-tale-themed amusement park– 125 people on his payroll, 300 freelancers plus their spouses and children.
“It was very romantic and fantastic for my wife and I to see, everybody was happy.”
Romance thrives around Rieu. There have been 13 marriages among his orchestra and entourage to date, the latest involving a Spanish double bass player and a young girl from the choir. “He is like a giant and she’s a really nice little girl from Maastricht. They are going to marry and have children, I think.”
Andre vows he’ll never retire and the only holiday he allows himself is an annual three-day break in Rome.
“I’m mad about the Romans and what they achieved so many years ago. I love the architecture and the history. I still can’t get my head around the fact that I’m looking at buildings the Romans built centuries ago.
“I love history and reading about ancient times, but I’m not a tourist. I like to see the people.”
He loves British humour, especially Fawlty Towers and Graham Norton, but won’t move here.
“I’m often asked why do I stay in Maastricht, why not live in London or Paris. Do you know what the traffic is like in London and Paris? There are 100,000 people here, we have our own orchestra, museums, our airport is ten miles away. What more do you want?”
Especially when home is the picturesque 16th century Castle De Torentjes overlooking the river Meuse that once belonged to Charles de Batz-Castelmore d’Artagnion (who inspired Alexandre Dumas’s fictional musketeer).
Andre’s other prized possession is his 1732 Stradivarius worth just shy of £10mill.
Genial, multi-lingual Rieu – he speaks six languages and can swear in all of them – is a lapsed Catholic who celebrates Christmas with four days of hometown concerts each December. He won’t work on Christmas Day though, treasuring family times with his two grown-up sons and five grandchildren.
Since 2005, he has conducted an open-air summer convert in Maastricht’s Vrijthof Square. Fans come from all over the world.
Six years ago, he announced his intention to play the first ever concert on the moon. Could it happen?
“I spoke to Richard Branson who said he was going to build a hotel on the moon and I said we’d play there,” he says. “Well, I’m 75, he should hurry out and build it!”
If it happened, what would you play? Holtz’s The Planets perhaps?
“No I would play The Blue Danube,” he says. “When Carl Sagan sent a golden record into space, he included Bach and Beethoven. I would have sent the Danube because that is what we humans are.
“It’s romance but it’s also melancholy. It mirrors human life. That is what is so beautiful about the waltz and so beautiful about humanity.”
*Andre’s new album The Sound Of Heaven is released on Friday [6th December]. His Christmas concert, Gold & Silver hits UK cinemas from Saturday 7th December, and he tours the UK in April and May andrerieu.com
