STEPHEN HOLDEN schreef 6 juni 1984 in The New York Times


MUSIC:HERMAN VAN VEEN


Print Save Published: June 6, 1984 HERMAN VAN VEEN, the Dutch musician and mime who has been a European star for over a decade, is a hybrid music hall entertainer and performance artist who would like to be a Chaplinesque multimedia virtuoso. In his sparsely attended Carnegie Hall concert on Friday, Mr. van Veen sang in three languages, played the piano and violin, danced and clowned.

He also played some acoustical tricks with recorded applause. And toward the end of a program that lasted barely an hour, he had the temerity to evoke a nuclear accident using reverberation, feedback and colored lights. This tepid little climax was the closest the evening came to having a dramatic moment.

It might have been otherwise had Mr. van Veen concentrated more on his music. A fine pop singer, he has the ability to take an intimate folk- pop song to an abrupt operatic crescendo without the two styles coming into conflict. And his performances of tunes such as the original ''Parade of Clowns'' were effectively melodramatic. But because the evening was devoted less to music than to eccentrically didactic clowning, Mr. van Veen's vaudeville show didn't hold together as an evening of entertainment.