Van Den Budenmayer's Biography

Van Den Budenmayer's Bio

Van den Budenmayer was a Dutch adventurer, soldier, composer, actor, painter, and writer whose many deeds became legends. He was born probably in Amsterdam; rumor has it that after he was born, his destitute mother left him drifting on one of Amsterdam's canals. He was found by beggars and sold to a childless couple of laborers. They were poor and unable to feed so many hungry mouths, so when Van den Budenmayer was six years old, he was sent to work in a monastery outside of the city.

He helped the monks in the scriptorium with their bookmaking activities and later helped them with the organ during the mass and thus he learned music, writing, reading, some math, and even Latin.

Restless, bored with the strenuous, monotonous and quiet environment of the monastery, at eleven he escaped into the darkness of night and joined a group of traveling actors. He spent many seasons with them, at first as an actor in child and female roles, later using his musical skills to accompany plays by playing on a harpsichord, even composing his own etudes. There he began writing his first plays; the most successful ones were comedic stories from the Bible which he embellished with "blasphemous" narratives, often portraying biblical characters and even angels with trickster traits and common people as good and morally righteous. These plays were presented in private residences of wealthy patrons and the company prospered.

This first bout with creativity was rudely interrupted when one of the patrons for whom the company performed fell in love with the young boy and had him kidnapped. Young Van den Budenmayer spent next few years in his household as a cupbearer. Even though the boy did not lack anything, living in luxury, he missed his old wild days and escaped at the first opportunity. His captor hunted him throughout the country and the boy got away only by signing up with the Dutch navy as a soldier.

During the bloody Anglo-Dutch war, he barely survived a sea battle, when his ship caught fire and the young man saved himself only by jumping into the sea, where he was fished out by the English. As a prisoner of war, he was brought to London and when the hostilities between the English and the Dutch ended, the young man was released from prison. Van den Budenmayer enrolled at Oxford University, where he studied theology, philosophy, Latin, and female anatomy.

It was during the Oxford period that he did all of his writing, including his most famous work Bonjour, Monsieur Pompadour.

It is not clear why he suddenly left Oxford, but there is indirect evidence that he seduced the bride of a powerful Lord, by promising to teach her the pronunciation of the Dutch word "Klootviool," and taught her he did. Van den Budenmayer had to leave in hurry, leaving all his possessions behind. He bribed the captain of a Dutch merchant ship, anchored in London's docks and thus he escaped and saved his life.

The Lord had all his writing destroyed. Bonjour, Monsieur Pompadour survived only because a Russian monk, briefly visiting London, memorized its contents. Even the powerful Lord was not allowed to cut off the monk's head to completely destroy Van den Budenmayer's literary oeuvre.

Thus the work got a second chance, since the monk returned to Siberia, where he translated it into Russian and chanted it to his fellow monks who orally spread it across the country. Bonjour, Monsieur Pompadour was passed on in the folk tradition from father to son, until the nineteenth century, when groups of men performed it on street corners in towns and cities. A group of six bearded men in black peasant cassocks stood in a circle on a street corner and hummed in a deep baritone, while one man with a fancy mustache curled over his upper lip, outfitted like a gentleman and wearing a bowler hat, recited the work in a solemn voice. Often they were accompanied by a young maiden in a local folk dress, who played a violin at certain points in the performance. It took about two weeks to finish the whole story. Bonjour became immensely popular in Russia and Eastern Europe. The story was finally written down and translated into English by a New York publisher of Slavic origin who had heard it performed in the town of Cassovia.

Van den Budenmayer's seafaring experience and his education made him valuable person for the merchant whose ship he boarded and he stayed employed in the merchant's service, raising quickly through the ranks until he became a partner in one of the most powerful Dutch trading companies. Working with the Dutch East-India company, Van den Budenmayer became wealthy, bought a large mansion in Amsterdam and enjoyed life of luxury. Then a misfortune struck. Even though he was wealthy and did not have to personally sail with his merchandise, Van den Budenmayer loved the sea and the adventure and one fateful day he boarded a schooner, The Flying Dutchman, bound for Brazil. The ship disappeared in a storm near the Bermuda Triangle.

Two years later, sailors saw a mysterious ship, near the Cape of Good Hope, sailing in the mist at great speed. When it came closer, to the sailors' horror it apparently had no crew. The planks were wet and rotting, covered by seaweed and crawling with critters found only underwater, some only in deep depths. The sailors could see only the faded name on the ship: The Flying Dutchman. Over the years, the ghost ship without a crew or passengers, was seen in every remote corner of the seven seas by many sailors, mainly during a violent storm and when their ship was in distress. No one who was aboard The Flying Dutchman was ever seen again. No one but Van den Budenmayer, who about five years after he vanished, was noticed sitting in his favorite tavern near Amsterdam's docks. He was pale as a ghost, disheveled, and his face reflected the torments of some unspeakable horror. Day after day he sat in the tavern drinking in silence, irresponsive to anyone's inquiries. Van den Budenmayer never spoke again. He began to compose music, which became his only communication with the world. His most famous composition is Concerto en Mi Mineur. Nothing more is known of him.