True Love

A Theatrical Song Cycle for Soprano & Piano

“When you are a star, they let you do it.”

In True Love, Renske Vrolijk sets the raw, verbatim rhetoric of sexual entitlement to music of deceptive lightness. By combining historical sources—from the 17th-century diaries of Samuel Pepys to the speeches of the modern populist archetype—the cycle exposes the horrifying seductiveness of power.

Cover of the True Love song cycle by Renske Vrolijk

for performers and concert programmers

The Trap

The work operates as a collage, telling the story of ‘Mary’, a woman navigating a world where ‘protection’ is a synonym for control. Vrolijk creates a landscape of ironic dissonance, using melody and tonality as a trap. In the opening movement, the text describes a sexual assault (“I moved on her like a bitch”), yet the performance instruction reads ‘playful’. The piano lilts in a benign metre, trapping the audience in the discomfort between the charm of the music and the violence of the words.

Civil Action

The 45-minute cycle tracks the erosion of autonomy. It moves from the ‘grooming’ phase—where religious purity is weaponised—to the legislative control of the female body (Bill Heartbeat). The finale marks a shift in perspective, culminating in the soprano realising the full weight of the ‘Civil Action’ brought against her. It is a piece written with a chilling, painted-on smile.

The songs

1. True Love

2. Mother

3. Virgin

4. The gun in my pocket

5. Powder your nose

6. Bill Heartbeat

7. The Janes

8. Rejoice

For performers

Year:

2023

Duration:

45′

Instruments:

S, pf

Premiere:

True Love (2018)

The gun in my
pocket (2024)

Commission:

Written for:
Bauwien
van der Meer &
Caecilia Boschman
With support
Performing Arts
Fund NL

Category:

vocal

Language:

English

Lyricist:

Renske Vrolijk

Are you interested in performing this work? Please contact my publisher.

Order sheet music

Renske’s sheet music
is published by Deuss Music.