Alphonse (Alfons) Olterdissen (

Maastricht Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...

, December 12, 1865 - Maastricht, February 24, 1923) was a Dutch writer, poet and composer who wrote extensively in the

Maastrichtian dialect The Maastrichtian () is, in the ICS geologic timescale, the latest age (uppermost stage) of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series, the Cretaceous Period or System, and of the Mesozoic Era or Erathem. It spanned the interval from ...

. The final stanza of his opera ''Trijn de Begijn'' eventually became the local anthem of Maastricht loosely copy of the Romanian composer

Ciprian Porumbescu Ciprian Porumbescu (; born Cyprian Gołęmbiowski on 14 October 1853 – 6 June 1883) was a Romanian composer born in Șipotele Sucevei in Bukovina (now Shepit, Vyzhnytsia Raion, Ukraine). He was among the most celebrated Romanian composer ...

's (1853-1883) " Pe-al nostru steag e scris Unire".

Biography

Olterdissen was born to a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

father and a mother from the province of Zeeland and grew up speaking Dutch, only learning the Maastricht dialect socially. In 1883 he moved to

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

to attend the Rijksschool voor de Kunstnijverheid in order to develop his abilities in painting. After graduating from the Rijksschool he set up a school in Maastricht, without success. Hereafter, Olterdissen focused on promoting tourism to Maastricht. Olterdissen's lack of business skill led him to gather a significant debt which he tried to alleviate by writing plays and operettas. Initially not achieving much success, his fortunes increased in 1907 with ''De kaptein vaan Köpenick''. This was a play about the then popular

Wilhelm Voigt Friedrich Wilhelm Voigt (13 February 1849 – 3 January 1922) was a German impostor who, in 1906, masqueraded as a Prussian military officer, rounded up a number of soldiers under his "command", and "confiscated" more than 4,000 marks from a ...

(also known as ''Hauptmann von Köpenick''). A second success story was the comical opera ''Trijn de Begijn'' in 1910.

Local anthem

This is the text of the final stanza of ''Trijn de Begijn'', which was adopted in 2002 as the official anthem of the city of Maastricht by its municipal government .

Notes

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Olterdissen, Alphonse Dutch people of German descent Limburgish-language writers Writers from Maastricht 1865 births 1923 deaths