Hello, friends.  I'm still shaking off jet lag and trying to live 9 pm
as though it weren't the following 3 am!  But, despite the fatigue, my
eight-day trip to the Netherlands for their annual 4-Daagse (Four days'
march) was a great trip and not w/out some music related experiences.

For instance, there was a group of marchers from South Molucca who sang
the most gentle, almost plaintif songs to accompany their walk, contrasting
markedly with the marches and polkas sung by other national groups.  They
seemed so friendly, it was hard to believe that their countrymen had
hijacked a railway train in the Netherlands a few years back, in the
course of which several hostages had been killed.

On the third day, known for its "seven hills", we passed through the little
town of Linden where the people had put up scenes from various fairy tales,
and on one lawn displaying a US flag, a model of Elvis playing a piano.

Particularly stimulating and adrenalin enhancing was an American unit I
fell in step with.  They were led by a young first john whom I would have
detested had I encountered him in my younger days as an enlisted man who in
a voice that could have filled a major stadium unamplified started counting
a beautifully syncopated cadence, assisted by one of the men.  The
hesitations in the "Left, right...your right...your right your right your
LEFT" spun out in unexpected variations always coming back eventually to a
"Left" on the left foot, much like an Art Tatum theme coming back to where
it started after having gone through modulations and variations from which
one would have thought it could never return.  There followed marching
rhymes called out w/ an infectuous gusto that totally made me forget how
tired I was.

A British unit just ahead tried to drown the Americans out.  A competition
ensued.  I don't want to say who won.  I fear, as Thomas Mann once wrote
about judging a Wagner concert in an Italian hall where the audience was
divided in its appreciation, that I might have made my decision along
patriotic lines.

The last evening, Friday, I had dinner w/ an Internet pen pal from nearby
Eindhoven and had a chance to see some of the city's frenzied nightlife on
a beautiful summer evening at the close of the 4-Daagse.

The next day I took the train to Amsterdam, where I stayed two more nights.
I spent the afternoon and dinner w/ another Internet friend who had come in
from Utrecht.  He showed me a house where Willem Mengelberg, who either did
or did not collaborate with the Nazis (my own feeling is that, if he wasn't
a collaborator, he was certifiably naive), had lived, which was not far
from the Concertgebouw where I bought a ticket for the following night's
concert.

It was a fine concert.  The Salzburg Chamber Soloists played Mozart's
Divertimento in D, K136, Haydn's Cello Concerto in C w/ cellist Quiriene
Viersen, Bruckner's Adagio for String Quintet, and Elgars Introduction and
Alegro, op. 47.

I've always liked the Mozart, ever since I first stumbled upon it as
the "other side" of a 10" London LP on which Munchinger and the Stuttart
Chamber Players also played Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, to which I think I
almost prefer this work by the composer when he was a 16-year old.  I had
not previously heard of Ms. Viersen but have since been told that she's a
rising star who attracted Yo Yo Ma's attention during one of his master
classes.  She played w/ a gusto that I recall seeing in video clips of
Jaqueline DuPre.  Indeed the entire ensemble played w/ infectious
enthusiasm and the concert was a marvelous way to end an exciting eight
days in the Netherlands.

I walked back to the hotel and flew home the next day

Walter Meyer