Composers and Musicians of the Netherlands

Robert de Bree’s Playlist (2)

Georges Aperghis

In this episode, we’ll hear a second selection from the musical choices of Robert de Bree, recorder player, Baroque oboist, teacher, improviser and composer. Robert was a guest on the Muziekmakers der Nederlanden podcast episodes broadcast on Monday 7 and 14 September 2026. They are easy to find on the Concertzender website or via Apple Podcasts.

Robert teaches historical improvisation, including at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague, and performs improvised music with the Scroll Ensemble, which he co-founded, at concerts and festivals in the Netherlands and abroad. But he is also a composer, as we discover in De Nachtmerrie van de PCR Test. On YouTube, he explains the inspiration behind the piece:

“For this composition I was inspired by Marin Marais’s Le Tableau de l’Operation de la Taille, in which Marais describes his experiences on the operating table with text and music. My other inspiration was Partimento, which is a fascinating pedagogical tool for composition from Naples in the 18th century (and beyond). I have been researching how to use this keyboard-centred tool as a solo melody player and some of the results found their way into this composition. At the same time the world was hit by the pandemic and to be able to work we needed to do those PCR tests. For some reason they really freaked me out and it helped me to hear the funny stories from colleagues about things that happened during their tests. So I asked my friends on Facebook to tell me their best PCR stories and that’s how I got to the ‘libretto’ for my piece.”