Proud of Holland
“The Dutchman does not exist”. Princess Maxima shocked a Dutch audience in 2008 with this statement. What she meant was that Holland also derives its identity from the position the country has taken for half a millennium: that of a refuge and tolerant trading nation.
The fact that this position in Western Europe is indeed something to be proud of, we Dutchmen only seem to realize when we become European or World champion with a multi cultural football team. And this while the most flourishing period in Holland, the Golden Century, was achieved thanks to so many immigrants. In around the year 1600 one out of three residents in Amsterdam was born outside of Holland. In the 16th century Portuguese Jews fled for the inquisition and ended up in Amsterdam. One century later a flow of protestant religious persecuted from France joined them. From the 20th century Italian immigrants in Amsterdam become chimney sweepers and window cleaners. Because of the opera repertoire from their home country, they stand at the origins of the belcanto tradition of the Amsterdam neighborhood ‘Jordaan’, that leads from Willy Alberty and Johnny Jordaan to Andre Hazes. But Holland also profited in the ‘higher’ arts from the constant inflow of foreigners, as the list of composers below proves. For this programme the Swedish Dutch composer Klas Torstensson will compose a new work.

Klas Torstensson Prelude & Encores (2012, written in commission of Radio 4)
Frank Martin ‘Trois airs populaires Irlandaises’
Johann Wilhelm Wilms Rondo from : Sinfonia no. 4 in c minor, op. 23
Jan Pietersz. Sweelinck Fantasia Chromatica
Pietro Locatelli Introduttione Teatrale
Willy Alberti Like a wild orchid