Theo Verbey is one of those composers who found his own style early in his career. His style is characterised by a great feeling for structure and instrumentation.

After his education at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Theo Verbey quickly became one of the most performed composers alive in the Netherlands. Moreover his love for historical models is evident:  so he referred to Mozart’s Prague Symphony in Triade (1991), references to Ravel and Perotinus can be heard in the Fractal Symphony (2004), his Clarinet Concerto (2005) alludes to Japanese Gagaku and the Piano Concerto (2006) alludes to Varèse and Scriabin.

Nearly all the compositions are characterised by a richly vibrant and detailed style and a deep understanding for the harmonious and melodic material, as well as a keen knowledge of the instrumental apparatus.

Verbey’s work is comparable to architecture: his compositions are given a structure like building constructions, with a innate relationship between details and the larger form.

His arrangements have also pleased many: Riccardo Chailly conducted the  Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra some thirty times with Verbey’s orchestral version for orchestra of Alban Berg’s Pianosonate opus 1; later this was also performed a number of times with the Gewandhausorchester in Leipzig. 

• I ever entirely part from a composition, but that gnawing feeling of a less successful performance is for me not terribly draining. (NRC Handelsblad 30 November 1990)

• I try to compose a sort of music that is almost influenced to a saturation point: not by fifty years of tradition, but by hundreds of years. (The Volkskrant 20 March 1992)

• I do not teach because I like to teach; I do it also to be partially independent from subsidies and funds. Subsidies have a domesticating function. I do not plead to abolish them, but I wonder myself if it is wise for a composer to be entirely dependent on subsidies.  Eventually one must risk accepting that nobody finds your music good; then, too must you able be carry on. (NRC Handelsblad 1 April 1997)