Gewijd aan de Helden der Slag in de Java- Zee, Februari 1942
Opgedragen aan de Koninklijke Nederlandse Marine en geschreven voor de Mariniers-Kapel, Amstelveen 1949
In memory of the Heroes of the Battle in the Java Sea, February 1942
Dedicated to the Royal Dutch Marine Corps and written for the Mariniers Kapel, Amstelveen 1949
After Smit Sibinga's death, Everard van Royen, director of the Amsterdam Music Lyceum, praised him as a sensitive and skillful composer and “the beauty of the ancient civilization of the Indonesian archipelago which had influenced him during his twenty years in the tropics.” Theo Smit Sibinga’s music is transparent and melodic and he felt attracted to modern French culture. As a composer he remained relatively unknown since he was not the kind of man to put himself at the forefront. Many of his manuscripts were lost during his captivity in the camps on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies.
by Henk Mak van Dijk