Hondert bloemen = A hundred flowers, 1972 - 2000

This Oosterhuis text is a litany of the floral imagination of the Dutch, who enjoy an endless year-round tapestry of flowers, affirming that beauty and security ensure that all is well, with happiness guaranteed. We offer flowers at birth, at weddings, at funerals. We present and receive them as gifts of love and remembrance. A flower is a symbol of that permanet garden planted by the Creator on this planet of green and blue, floating in a light-filled Cosmos of darkened energy, akin to the rainbow promising a hope-filled future. Oosterhuis personifies his flowers, dressing them in epithets as one would people neighborhoods. Yet we all, animal and vegetable, crave the water and minerals necessary for life, resources which have been the sources of endless conflict since the planet first began to cool and life-forms evolved.

This septet, seven lines of rich, rhyming verse in Dutch is impossible to translate faithfully. The alliteration and rhyming cascades are lost in transliteration. Nevertheless, this is a accurate, singable venture since . Hujibers' setting enhances the flow of the text, elevating its meanings to match the colorful imagery. He uses forumla technique throughout, with natural interval techniques. From verse three onwards, there is a thread of vocal articulated harmonies (Yah-dah-yah) to underwrite the text. Nor do I think Huijbers was unaware of the importance of the natural syllable YAH, intentionally culled fromYHWH. - Tony Barr