Robert Heppener

Robert Heppener, a Dutch composer born in Amsterdam in 1925, was one of the most promising young voices in his country's music after the Second World War. His training as a pianist and composer took place at the Amsterdam Conservatory, where he received composition lessons from Van Lier.

From 1956 he combined teaching with composing. He taught music theory at the conservatories of Rotterdam and at the Muzieklyceum in Amsterdam, and composition at the conservatories of Amsterdam and Maastricht. His first work to attract public attention was the Cantico delle creature di S Francesco d'Assisi (1952; revised 1955). Shortly afterwards, his Symphony was performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Haitink, and Heppener came to be regarded as one of the most promising Dutch composers of his generation.

His early music is characterised by a very tightly knit construction, a strong sense of purpose and a notable control of dramatic tension and release. Eglogues (1963) is the most frequently cited example of this period: a work in four movements inspired by the opening verses of Saint-John Perse's Chronique, in which the poet's natural imagery is reflected in the music and an oppressive atmosphere of defeat and uncertainty emerges. Canti carnascialeschi (1966), a choral cycle in five parts on poems of the Florentine carnival, and Del iubilo del core (1974) show his interest in contemporary innovations without giving up a language of his own and clarity of expression. Although these works are predominantly atonal, in the 1980s he sought a new tonality, as in Memento (1984) and Hymn to Harmony (1987).

His legacy lies in a coherent body of work, in which open sonorities and the pursuit of an existential truth remain constant features. His scores were published mainly through Donemus.