NOW: DJ top

The introduction of house music to the European pop scene (late 1980s) marked the start of a golden age for the Netherlands. Before that, the Dutch had the occasional world hit, whereas today at least three Dutch disk jockeys preside at the global turntable top. DJ Tiësto, Ferry Corsten and Armin van Buuren are invited all over the world to enthral partying crowds.

The DJ top of today are the musical descendants of the Amsterdam pop duo 2Unlimited. In the 1990s Ray Slijngaard and Anita Doth put the Netherlands on the map overnight with the house number No limit. The duo sold more than 20 million albums and is the Netherlands’ most successful pop act. The current DJ top frequently play their numbers during mega-house events like Sensation, Trance Energy and Dance Valley. And of course foreign DJs join in there too. Increasingly with a Dutch stage name: that scores, they say!

THEN: Indirect teacher of Bach

During the Renaissance the ears of music lovers were trained on the Netherlands. The composer and organist Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck (born in Deventer, 1562) was famous in many parts of Europe. Pupils travelled from all over Europe to attend his lessons in the Netherlands. Sweelinck was particularly influential in Germany. His lessons are even reputed to have indirectly influenced Johann Sebastian Bach in his early years. Yet Sweelinck  himself did not become the greatest composer of his time.

Sweelinck had to struggle for both international and national recognition. Jacob Obrecht – for many years composer and singing teacher in Utrecht and Bergen op Zoom – was just that bit more important. Historians differ however as to whether Obrecht was born in the Netherlands. Sweelinck did have one triumph long after he died: he is the only composer to be depicted on Dutch money. His portrait was on the 25-guilder banknotes in circulation from 1972. Unfortunately for Sweelinck, the organisation in charge of the euro omitted him from their calculations.