Prosecutor of the Dutch deportation policy, list pusher of the SP, the father of Trijntje and Tjeerd, speaker during Prince Claus's farewell service: Huub Oosterhuis must by now be known to everyone. However, it all started in the illustrious 1960s in the Amsterdam Studentenekklesia. Partly thanks to Oosterhuis' poetry, this place - once founded by the legendary Father Van Kilsdonk - became an
… important testing ground for liturgical innovation. Oosterhuis' influence on the ecclesiastical song culture can hardly be overestimated: in many Catholic and Protestant churches his songs are sung almost every week. The sporadic criticism of this poetry is also remarkably broad: both the Catholic teaching authority and good literary taste are said to be at stake. More interesting is the observation that Oosterhuis - whether you like him or not - seems to represent the low-ecclesiastical Netherlands like no other. Most of the music on the present CD was composed relatively recently by Tom Löwenthal. The exception is the Pentecostal liturgy When the Day Was Come, which dates from the 1970s. (HJ)more
