Festival Classique in the Hague

Festival Classique was held last weekend in The Hague and Sean and I attended two classical music events: the Hofvijver concert with classical music and acrobatics and a 'Borrelconcert' at a secret location.

Saturday night was the Hofvijver concert, so called because it is held on the Hofvijver which is the name of the pond in front of the beautiful parliament buildings, the Binnenhof and The Hague’s museum of 17th century Dutch art, the Mauritshuis. The concert stage is a temporary floating podium on the pond and the audience stalls are also on a seperate floating podium. This was a sold out concert, it was the most popular concert of the whole festival weekend and it was filmed live for Dutch TV.

The Hofvijver podium

It was not the perfect evening weather -wise for such a concert. It might be June but it is definately not summer here in The Netherlands at the moment. There was wind, cold and rain. Fortunately the podiums had some rain protection and there were rugs providedfor our laps.

On the Hofvijver stage, The Hague’s Residentie Orkest (the Philharmonic Orchestra) was led by the Chinese-American female conductor Xian Zhang and she was a little dynamite. The orchestra played compostions by Benjamin Britten, Edward Elgar plus Stravinsky’s Firebird. The acoustics were quite different obviously from a concert hall but I like the way the music was carried by the wind across the water to us. The ducks in the pond were not bothered by it at all and swam right up to the podium. Maybe they are used to it, this is the fifth year of the festival and it’s Hofvijver concert.

Acrobats being lowered by crane onto the podium

It wasn’t just music at this concert. Some very brave circus performers from Corpus Acrobatics perfomed some thrilling contemporary circus acts, in the style of Cirque de Soleil, to the music. The acrobats were either lowered onto the stage by a crane or emerged out of the chilly water to the podium and then contorted their bodies inside clear plastic zorb balls, hung off straps rigged up to the crane, tumbled in silver caterpiller outfits and danced syncronised swimming routines. They would have been freezing. There were lots of oohs and aahs but another highlight of the evening was that we were watching this concert alongside Her Royal Highness Queen Beatrix. 

My snap of Queen Beatrix

The Queen made her appearance in a glamourous black furry coat and had perfect coiffered hair that didn’t move. We were less than three metres from her as she made her way to her seat with her entourage. Very exciting. 

On Sunday Sean and I attended a more intimate concert. We were picked up by a gCab: a small taxi-cab that runs on green energy. The cab was to take us to a surprise location for a Borrelconcert (a concert accompanied by drinks and nibblies.) We were delighted to be taken to the Van Kleef distillery in the Hague. The distillery dates from 1842 and still today produces the Dutch gin known as jenever (gin actually evolved from Dutch jenever) and liqueurs. Van Kleef was first in The Hague to have a telephone number and an old telephone directory is the evidence: the phone number was “1.” Van Kleef’s most famous customer was lived a few doors up - Vincent Van Gogh.

Van Kleef distillery

The shop room of Van Kleef where the concert was held for eight audience members was very cosy and we were able to try lots of jenever, advocaat and liqueurs. The borrel included herring (blurgh!!) but also other delicious cheeses and bites. We were also treated to mint and lime prosecco cocktails that were divine. We went home with a bottle of pear jenever that was lovely. 

Herring and jenever

And the concert was definately unique. Two kooky musicians opened their show by playing the table. With their fingers, knuckles and hands. They read specialised sheet music to play three “tunes”. Next, they played empty jenever bottles of various sizes and shapes. Finally, they played conventional instruments. On their xylophones they performed a piece meant for two guitars written by the Argentinean tango composer Ástor Piazolla. At the wedding of the Dutch Crown Prince Willem Alexander to his Argentinean bride Maxima, Piazolla’s music was also played and famously led to Maxima public tears.

Playing the jenever bottle

I hope we are here next year to try some of the other unique and bizarre Festival Classique concert options. One that I missed out on this year was the concert at the hairdressers. All the tickets were sold out for the wash and blowdry including private classical guitar concert.