The Residentie Bachkoor chose composer Bram Kortekaas from all Dutch composers who have graduated in the past 15 years. The pacifist pamphlet Dulce bellum inexpertis by the Dutch thinker Desiderius Erasmus has been chosen as the text. A secular text in Latin against war, which fits perfectly with The Hague, city of peace and justice. Erasmus outlines what he considers to be deceptive ideas about war in his time and contrasts them with his own pacifist, gospel-based theories.

“Anyone who knows what war is, abhors it. There is nothing worse and nothing that should be avoided anymore. War is inhumane and unchristian,” he says. The text was chosen for the war in Ukraine. This conflict makes Erasmus’s text about the misery of war even more meaningful and relevant.