Tweet25-06-2010 om 14:09 by Sueli Brodin

A big difference between my children’s school years and my own is that my children are given many more opportunities to take part in special extracurricular activities, such as nature walks, museum visits or excursions to dance and theatre shows.

A few weeks ago, their teachers organised an outing to the Limburg Symphony Orchestra (LSO) in Maastricht to listen to a Dutch musical performance entitled De Dag en Nachtegaal (The Day and Nightingale), based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale The Nightingale.





The 30 minute bike trip to the Vrijthof Theatre in Maastricht did not pose any challenge for the older children, among whom my son Tim, who had been asked to check their bicycles before coming to school that day and all wore bright safety jackets.



At the school’s call, several parents and I volunteered to drive the younger children to Maastricht. My daughter Naomi and her two friends who travelled with me were very excited at the idea of going to a concert and it was lovely to hear them babbling and giggling during the entire ride.



Dutch composer Theo Loevendie

Before the trip, the children had done some preparatory work at school to better understand and appreciate the performance. They received a special booklet issued by the LSO with information about the production, in which they learned that the music of De Dag en Nachtegaal had been written in 1974 by a Dutch composer named Theo Loevendie who was now 80 years old and still composed music in his hometown of Amsterdam. They learned the names and listened to the sounds of various instruments in order to be able to recognise them during the performance and (re)acquainted themselves with Andersen’s fairy tale.





The Nightingale, by Hans Christian Andersen

The Nightingale tells the story of a Chinese emperor who lets a real nightingale go in favour of a more beautiful mechanical bird before finally realising his mistake. It is a tale about the power of music and truth, and the opposition between nature and technique, authenticity and imitation, reality and art, improvisation and design…

I have always found it a captivating story, not only because of the universal themes it deals with but also because it is set in Asia and is often accompanied by the most exquisite illustrations.



Several other schools were attending the performance at the Vrijthof Theatre that day. While we waited for our turn to enter the building, the children played at jumping and flying every time a gush of warm air flowed up from the parking lot underneath.



I admired the professional coordination of the event: every school entered the room in an orderly manner and was allocated a special section of the hall. The children looked impressed by the surroundings and many of them started whispering instead of talking out loud.





I greatly enjoyed the performance, a combination of Loevendie’s music with a new and modern text adaptation of Andersen’s tale by the Dutch author Kees van Kooten.

The two nightingales were easily recognisable through the instruments: the soft and harmonious sounds of a clarinet for the real nightingale, and percussion and wind instruments for the mechanical and artificial bird.

I was caught by surprise during the show when the narrator suddenly asked the children in the audience to invoke the real nightingale. Softly at first, and then more and more loudly, the children’s voices rose to fill the dark room with a moving chant they had learned at school: “De kleine echte nachtegaal, zingt zo mooi, zo mooi” (The song of the little, real nightingale is so beautiful, so beautiful)

Kees van Kooten’s text was an absolutely delight to listen to. He had rewritten the story in verse and some of the rhymes were true, and quite untranslatable, little jewels:

“Allemachtig
Wat is dat prachtig
Fluisterde de visserman”

“Hij is zo monotoon
Ik haat dat beest gewoon”

“Ik wil niet ziek
Ik wil muziek”

My children were very enthusiastic about everything they saw and heard that day at the theatre and still talk about it. My son Tim makes his sisters laugh when he imitates the mechanical bird as it breaks down into pieces, and the story of the nightingale seems to have had an extra appeal to them because of their genuine liking for birds.

As for myself, I was very grateful for this chance to rediscover Andersen’s fairy tale and its powerful message, still relevant in today’s world and for today’s leaders:

“I can’t build my nest and live in this palace,” said the nightingale, “but let me come whenever I like, then I will sit on the branch in the evening , and sing to you. I will sing to cheer you and to make you thoughtful too; I will sing to you of the happy ones, and of those who suffer too. I will sing about the good and the evil, which are kept hidden from you. But you must promise me one thing.”
“Everything,” said the emperor.
“I only ask one thing,” the nightingale replied; “let no one know that you have a little bird who tells you everything.” So saying, the nightingale flew away.

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