Rita Verschuur

The Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt lived in relative isolation for decades, seeing very few people and giving few interviews. So far, he has refused to have his diaries published, although a selection appeared earlier this year (2023): Vleugels. Leven en werk van Simeon ten Holt by Arie Vuyk. Oddly, the title looks more like a biography, then, too, the selections from the diaries are annotated. Ten Holt published an autobiography Het woud en de citadel. Memoires van een componist in 2009. (I am currently reading these two books.)

Since fame came late to Simeon ten Holt and he spent most of his time with his wife during the final decades of his life in Bergen, a rustic artist colony that has no railway station, not much has been published about him.

Over Simeon. Een vriendschap met Simeon Ten Holt is another book about the composer with a deceptive title. It looks like a biography or a monograph, yet in fact it is a volume of correspondence. Even so, it is an odd publication. Firstly, it can hardly be called substantial. In fact, the author fell out of favour with the composer for a long time. There are very few letters altogether, and the letters are not very substantial either. One certainly gets the feeling that this publication is more about the vanity of its author. It surely doesn't add much to our understanding of Simeon ten Holt.

The author of this small book is Rita Verschuur (1935). She is a Dutch writer of Swedish descent, who has mainly worked as a translator, translating both from and into Swedisch and Dutch. Her writing style is very simple (almost dotty) which you might think fits a translator of children's book, or perhaps reflects her personality. I suppose as contemporaries they simply got along very well. Perhaps it was just a clever editor who conceived of this small publication.… (mehr)