Richard Rijnvos

Richard Rijnvos is one of my favourite Dutch composers. He wrote Barbara Baccante for voice, cello and orchestra. I heard it at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam yesterday. Amazing how he works the sounds of the orchestra into something that sounds quite similar to the sound of rosining a cello bow, which the singer, a wonderful role of Salome Kammer does exactly at that moment. The end of the piece is very surprising, although the text (something with burning in hell, if I remember correctly) makes it logic. I loved that surprising end… Rijnvos is a free mind, with strong roots in the tradition of classical composing. I am trying to talk him into writing me something, and I don’t despair!