André Rieu reveals the pain of his childhood to Ivo Niehe

 

Four years of therapy was necessary for the celebrated violinist to process "loveless" upbringing. 

André Rieu reveals the pain of his childhood to Ivo Niehe

Apart from the corona virus, ANDRÉ RIEU's life seems to be like one big MUSIC PARTY ON THE SQUARE. But that has not always been the case. In addition to his violin case, the king of the waltz carries with him a burden that he fought with therapy for years: the trauma of his youth. What happened there, he reveals tonight in a special episode of the TV Show, in which the world star reveals to IVO NIEHE how, at that time, the choice of his wife MARJORIE cost him dearly at home ...

De Telegraaf, 17 Nov 2020

 

A special episode of IVO NIEHE's TV Show, will be shown tonight(17 Nov 2020). ANDRÉ RIEU (71) emotionally opens the book about his troubled youth. The king of the waltz posthumously cracks hard nuts at both his parents, who he said gave him "a loveless upbringing."  ANDRÉ RIEU SR., Leader of the Limburg Symphony Orchestra, and his wife had three sons and three daughters whom they ruled with an iron hand.

Four years of therapy were necessary for André at a later age to learn how to deal with his childhood trauma. He tells Ivo to have done everything necessary to give his own sons a better childhood, which, according to PIERRE, who can also be seen in the program, has been extremely successful.

Tears roll while this barely discussed episode of his life is being revealed. André Rieu, who is presented by host Ivo Niehe as "the world star who has rarely been presented to the Netherlands in this manner", struggles with a painstakingly processed past and does not suppress his feelings during the program which the Avrotros presenter is trying out for the first time tonight.

He says, "I walked around with the idea of "the early years of ... "where celebrities talk about the time before their success. The years before they became who they are and how everyone knows them now. It seems like a wonderful new format to me and it is certainly is nice to be able to try it out in the TV Show environment. Tonight we are going to do that with a big name like André Rieu and his special story.”

Marjorie

Apart from being special, that story is also dramatic. André makes it clear in the course of the broadcast that he lacked a lot of love in the first years of his life. A lecture endorsed by his brother ROBERT, experienced the same during his childhood. Both men say that children need attention and a feeling of being loved. Both fell precisely far short from that point. Friends were kept outside the door, performance was paramount. When mother ALICE was once called to school because things were not going quite well with little André as expected, she even felt insulted when her son was called "an artist" by the teachers.

It all went completely wrong when André, then 24, brought his then later wife MARJORIE home for the first time. In fact, what happened there in the process went so far that the bond between the violinist and his parents was forever disrupted. Moreover, father and mother Rieu never were at one of his concerts ... And that while the world turns out for André and his Johann Strauss Orchestra, when the Limburger unpacks his Stradivarius and almost yearly, descends during the summer on the famous Vrijthof. Spectators from better than one hundred countries sometimes save years, just  to be able to be there just once in the magical setting of his hometown.

Lifetime

His father passed away in 1992 and has never seen the world success of his renowned son, who, after all, followed in his footsteps. But even when junior made a difficult start with his Maastricht Salon Orchestra, he had already given up on him. Mother's chair remained empty until she passed away last year, at the age of 98.

This pain is also deep, as André talks about the last major run-in with his parents who, according to his brother, gave him "life imprisonment" when he decided to leave with Marjorie and explicitly chose her. "That was hard, because from that moment on he could not do anything right."

After introducing his parents to his bride-to-be and had brought a treat for with the coffee for the occasion, mother Rieu proposed to cancel the session. Marjorie could go home and 24-year-old André could go to his just cleaned-up room, and with clean linens. But André had other plans and went with his future wife - this was not the beginning of the end, but immediately the end.

The illustrious 1970s had begun. The Rieus were Roman Catholic and were also strict in their teachings. In the Limburg from back then it was still like that. And what does a condoning André now say: "It was the time in which you brought your children up like that."

It was quite different when Pierre took a girlfriend home and André found his son in bed with her the next morning when he opened the door. Screaming with laughter, father and son now reminisce about that embarrassing moment." Dad asked: "What are you doing?"And I told him I was explaining something. "And?" He then asked. "Did  she get it?"

The ever invisible Marjorie and the man who chose her and not his family are now heading for their golden wedding anniversary.  André has often emphasized in interviews that without the former German teacher he would have ended up under a bridge or in the gutter. The waltz king also has an extraordinarily close bond with his brother Robert, who lives in Marseilles, and who also talks uninhibitedly about the special family from which he and André came from.

The special Ivo Nihe TV program aired on Dutch NOP1, 17 Nov 2020 @ 21:30 

Thanks to Ineke and Ruud for the article and John's Translation of it ...