André Rieu was born in Maastricht, Netherlands, in October 1949. Rieu’s father was conductor of the Maastricht Symphony Orchestra and he began studying violin at the age of five. He trained at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels where he was awarded the Premier Prix.
After becoming disillusioned playing in classical orchestras, Rieu formed his own – the Johann Strauss Orchestra – in 1987. Having spent years establishing himself, his big breakthrough came when he performed Shostakovich’s The Second Waltz during the halftime break at the 1995 Champions League semi-final tie between Ajax and Bayern Munich. Since then, he has sold more than 40 million albums and has been a consistently featured among yearly run-downs of the world’s most successful concert tours.
Speaking to the Big Issue for his Letter to My Younger Self, AndréRieurecalls his childhood struggles, finding love and dealing with fame.
I think I was a happy boy when I was born. Then, well, my parents were very severe and they didn’t love me very much. I think I can say that. There was one thing that my younger self wanted and that was making music and making people happy. I think I like to make people happy now because I was not so happy when I was young.
I was the third of six children and we were all encouraged into music from an early age. I tried all sorts of instruments and the violin won. I was five years old when I started to play the violin and my first teacher was an 18-year-old blonde girl. That’s good for a little boy. I fell in love with her, so that helped a lot. She played for me and she had this beautiful tone, this beautiful vibrato. And I thought, my goodness, that is what I want to achieve. She told me afterwards that within three weeks, I couldn’t play scales but I could play beautiful notes with vibrato. She said that I was gifted. I think she was right!
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1995:André Rieu at an event to mark 750 years of the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Image: Penta Springs Limited / Alamy
I can remember the first time I played for an audience. It was at the Conservatorium here in Maastricht. I was very nervous, but I played very well and people liked it. I still get very nervous. Before I go on stage I know the programme. I know more or less the text I’m going to say, but I don’t know: how is the audience tonight? Will I achieve this connection with the audience? Because that’s what I’m looking for every night. That’s why I’m so nervous. And I must say, after two or three minutes on stage it’s gone because I see: haha! it’s going to work again tonight.
I think my younger self believed this could be my life but in a completely innocent way. I didn’t know all the difficulties that come when you are an adult and you want to earn money with music. I was not aware of all the problems that would come towards me, but I learned. I learned a lot. The most important thing is making music with love. So the love I lacked when I was young, I wanted to bring that in my violin, and that is why I think the people love my concerts so much because it’s always from my heart.
2013: André Rieu with son Pierre at the investiture of King Willem-Alexander at the Royal Palace, Amsterdam. Image: Albert Nieboer / NETHERLANDS OUT / Alamy
Fame is a word that exists in the heads of the people, not in my head. I see it happening a lot with people on television. Oh, I’m famous, so I must be different now. No, I am the same guy I was before. I go to the shop on the corner and I do my shopping and I cook myself. OK, in the airport, being famous is very convenient because they know me, ‘Ah, yeah, you can go through.’ Of course, I’m glad that the money I earn is OK but when I’m dead, I cannot take the money into my coffin. So I’m using the money to pay my people well, to treat the audience well, and to give them more and more.
When you look to other classical orchestras, you see the camera people filming the bow of a violin or the fingers of a flute player – you never see the whole flute player! I threw that out. I don’t want that. I want feelings. I want to see the man or the girl who is playing. And also in the audience, I want to see the emotions.
Of course, my younger self would never have thought that my career would be as big as it is now. But one thing I knew for sure, I wanted to be on stage and I wanted to play violin for people. That’s what I dreamt of. So in fact, I’m living in my dream! I had that dream very early, from the beginning.
I would tell my younger self to look forward to the life I’m living now with my orchestra, travelling the world. I know I’m 75 but, in my head, I’m 25. I think that’s the art of growing older, that in your head you stay young. I can say that I am happy now. My audience knows my orchestra. They know when you go to a concert of André and his orchestra you go home with a smile on your face. So that is exactly what I had in my mind. I couldn’t imagine a better life than this.
2023: André Rieu taking a bow with The Johann Strauss Orchestra, Maastricht. Image: Marcel van Hoorn.
I started to tell you about my early youth, that I was a happy boy. I think that was the problem with my parents. They were very complicated people and I think they couldn’t cope with me sitting there being happy. They were jealous, I don’t know. I’m not a psychologist, but that is my explanation. I didn’t feel that at that time but now I know that out of all my brothers and sisters, it was especially directed at me. I was just with my brother living in France and he was telling me all sorts of stories because he saw that. He was younger than me, but he saw that very clearly and I didn’t see it myself.
Now I jump to age 20 when I met my wife. She loved me and then I blossomed, the whole world opened for me. Love is all you need, that’s really true. At 21-22 we were really together, but we met for the first time when I was 11 and she was 13. I can remember that first meeting. She was in the class with my elder sister and they had a party in our house. So all these girls came and I remember one girl with a lot of curls – and that was my wife. She remembers the same because we were six children, and she was an only child. My goodness, what a lot of children there in that home and she remembers also only me.
2019:André Rieu performing at the MEO Arena, Lisbon, Portugal. Image: Marcel van Hoorn
The way I was brought up influenced what I was like as a parent. In fact, you should ask my sons, but I think I did it completely differently. I had an aunt, and she was a very wise lady. She said, “André from the moment your child is born, you should know that they’re going away from you. You are allowed to take care of them for 18 or 20 years, but then this person is going to go away from you.” And that was very wise. Instead of my parents’ day when they were owning the children.
If I could relive one day of my life… The day I was in bed for the first time with my wife. In love, touching her hand for the first time, that sort of thing. It was very, very nice. When you asked me, that is the first thing that came to my head.
The secret of a long-lasting relationship, we think always the same thing. You wouldn’t believe it, we are sitting on the couch, she says something, and I wanted to say that same thing. We are working together and we have a lot of respect for each other and we don’t own each other. A lot of people think that when you are together, you must stay together, or you own the other. And that’s not true. You are always free to go but therefore you stay.
André Rieu’s UK tour starts 2 April. His 75th birthday celebration, The Dream Continues, is in cinemas on 12 and 13 April.
