Music is best enjoyed live, and where better to do that than on a train? Especially a train travelling along one of the most beautiful routes in the Netherlands: the IJssel Valley between Arnhem and Zwolle. Views of farmland gliding by, rather than the distribution centres and data centres you come across elsewhere. And then suddenly, right next to you, an exceptionally friendly young woman starts stamping her feet and playing the violin at full volume.
For the uninitiated passenger, it came as quite a surprise to be greeted in a train compartment by the award-winning violinist Martine Velthuis, who was stamping her feet as she performed the piece Dance by Theo Loevendie. The other end of the carriage was occupied by the Ardemus Quartet, consisting of four saxophonists whose music perfectly complemented the languid rhythm of the train journey between Zutphen and Deventer.
Vibrating together
Last Saturday marked the fifth Composer’s Day, and for the first time there were also live concerts to enjoy on regular trains. Unfortunately, this was only on one route so far, as it would be really lovely to fill those often wasted minutes on public transport with real, live music in many more places. To feel the air vibrating together in the same space – or the floor, when Martine Velthuis joins in.
Or, if you do find yourself craving a bit more peace and quiet in the carriage: a concert in the station concourse, like the one that morning in Arnhem, where wind players walked from all corners of the organic-style building towards a central performance area. It takes you out of your daily grind – provided, that is, you haven’t set the noise-cancelling on your own earphones a bit too high. Listening to live music together: that’s what you do at Pinkpop, but it’s also possible at Arnhem or Zwolle station.
Not slippery
Composer’s Day is all about the people in the Netherlands who write new music for ensembles and soloists playing all the instruments developed over the past millennia. New music that is not (yet) pop music, but which does influence it, as visitors to The Cure’s gig at Pinkpop were able to experience. Music that sometimes has a reputation for being complex and difficult to listen to, but often sounds surprisingly human. And it is precisely that humanity that you miss more and more often, now that you can no longer tell the difference between ‘real’ and AI-generated music coming from the streamers in your ears, because everything has now been smoothed out by algorithms.
It is precisely the train conductors, who joined the musicians halfway between Dieren and Zutphen, who make you feel it: something genuine is happening here, whether you can sing along straight away or not.
So, more trains with live music next year. We’ve got plenty of musicians and composers to make that happen.
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