Version française, ici

Everyone knows this picture of Andre Rieu,
but many of you are unaware of the story he tells !
You may have never heard it or you may not understand Dutch.
Here is the translation, of his version of the fairy talel of Snow White,
as he told it a few years ago !
To hear the original version, click here

If you really want to understand the following piece of music we are going to play for you, I first have to tell you a story.   I am going to tell you a fairy tale.  (JSO: Yeah!!!.) 
Do you like fairy tales?  Yes?  (JSO:Yeah!!!)

There once were a king and a queen.  (JSO: aaahhh)  
They lived in a beautiful palace in a far away country.

This country was behind the seven mountains.   St Pieters Mountain, the Cau Mountain, Koe Mountain (Hills in Limburg) Mountain on Zoom and Three mountains (Bergen op Zoom and Driebergen are towns in Holland, Berg means mountain in Dutch. As you I am sure know there are no real mountains in Holland, but anything higher than a mole hill is called a berg)

Yes, that makes seven.

The queen’s name was Diana, and for the past seven years she had been happily married to Swiebertje. (Swiebertje is the name of a tramp in an old (1955-1976) TV show for children)  (JSO plays tune from show “There comes Swiebertje”

Hey, hey, hey, hey now stay with me, yes.

He was the only one allowed to call her Di , and indeed he always did just that.  He would call her Di, Di.   His mother also lived in the palace, you know one of those old bitches.  Her name wasn’t Di, Di but Taai, Taai. (Pronounced Ti, Ti, ouwe Taaie is slang for a tough old woman) 

As I said they were very happy together, but one of their wishes had not been fulfilled yet.They had not been blessed with a little prince or a little princess.  No matter what they tried. (Bouncy noises coming from the orchestra !!!!)

One evening they were sitting sociable and snug together in the downstairs kitchen of the palace. Di had cooked a wonderful meal.   French fries and balkenbrij.

(Balkenbrij is a dish from eastern Holland made with bacon, liver and buckwheat, the translation for balk is log or beam) 

Now if there was a wrong little log in the meal is not known, but the queen did not at all feel well after dinner and said I am going to lie down for just a little while.

And what happened….?  (Bouncy noise again!!!)

That night a little princess was born.   Yes, that is how those things happen.  But that dirty little log must have also had its effect on that little girl, because she always looked so pale and white that very soon she got the nick name Snow White.

Alas, soon after the birth the queen died and she was immediately replaced by a new stepmother.

Snow White grew up to be a beautiful young girl, really a hot number of a princess and she was always very successful with the princes in the neighborhood.

Her stepmother, who was ugly as sin, was green with envy.  Now that woman really was a little crazy.   She had a real nutty streak you see, every morning she would go to the bathroom upstairs, lock the door and then she would start talking to the mirror.

Every morning it was the same thing. “Mirror, mirror on the wall. Hey, you have heard that before?  Who is the fairest of them all ?  And that mirror who after all those years had also lost some of his marbles would yell back.  Erwin Kroll !!!!!

(Erwin Kroll is a Dutch national weatherman)

That would give that old bitch an apoplexy.   At one point she was so totally fed up that she hired an assassin.   He had to make sure that Snow White would disappear once and for all.  Snow White did indeed disappear at least that is what the queen thought.  However what she did not know is that the assassin she hired was having an affair with Snow White.  He did not kill her at all they just companionably moved in together.

On Saturdays when he went out to do his assassinations, he would take her for the weekend to the seven dwarfs. (Hei-ho, Hei-ho from the orchestra) 

Andre laughs and says “Every evening I have to deal with these people”.

For a while things seem to go well, but what Snow White did not know was that the oldest of the dwarfs was having an affair with the stepmother.

“Yes this is a very complicated story and you have to pay close attention.”

When the stepmother heard that Snow White was still alive she was furious, she dressed up to look like a witch. (Witch scream from the orchestra) Andre says “you scared the living daylights out of me”. So she dressed up like a witch and to be honest that did not take much.  She went to the dwarf’s cabin and knocked on the door. (Doorbell rings).

Yes, it is a real fairy tale door. Snow White opens the door (squeaking sound).
Is that the door?  “You are going to have to oil it.”     
Snow White opens the door friendly as always and she asks, “What can I do for you, dear lady.  Hello beautiful girl look at what I have for you, a delicious English filet mignon.

Anyway to make a long story short, after eating just one bite of that stuff Snow White falls down, deader then a doornail.  (Sound of something falling and then sirens from the orchestra).  There she lay fast asleep for 100 years until she was woken up by a kiss from  Prince Willem Alexander (the Dutch crown prince)

And they lived happily ever after

 
Story by Mme Marjorie Rieu, translation by Sonja Harper.