The Dutch singer, music educator and composer Catharina van Rennes enjoyed a good deal of fame during her life time, both for her pedagogical activities and for her songs. After studying singing (with Johan Messchaert) and composition (with Richard Hol), she began her career as a soloist, appearing in operas and oratorios. In 1887 she founded her own school of music in Utrecht, teaching singing, music theory and Dalcroze rhythmical gymnastics. For more than 40 years she inspired a love of music in generations of young people. For the coronation of Queen Wilhelmina in 1898 she conducted her Oranje-Nassau-Cantata op. 33 with a choir of 1.800 children and with orchestra. She composed more than a hundred children’s songs, songs for adult voice-lessons and for performances, using the Dutch language. The songs, highly regarded for their freshness, appealed to the imagination of both young and adult. For the women’s choir founded by herself she composed vocal duets, trios and quartets. Van Rennes was skilfully able to adapt her style of writing to suit the interpreter in question, creating from the simple to classic art song, a skill she shares with Fanny Hensel.
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