“Except for casually superficial encounters on TV shows, I didn’t really know you.. but like all of musical Netherlands, I admired you enormously,” Ilse DeLange writes on Instagram.
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Wolter Kroes agrees with her. “Doe Maar was the very best Dutch-speaking group for me. And I was such a fan of @hennyvrienten. But also in his later years I thought Henny was a fantastic musician and composer. I wish all his loved ones a lot of strength with this terrible loss.”
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Michiel Veenstra, program director and DJ of radio station KINK, says on Twitter that he is “disturbed” by the news. “Doe Maar was my first love, of unprecedented importance for so many generations of artists afterwards. Thanks for everything Mr. Vrienten. You were a great one.”
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Cornald Maas calls Vrienten a “great” singer on Twitter. “But above all a great musician and composer, with a great passion for the arts, and never eager for irrelevant (media) attention. ‘Old soldiers never die, they just fade away’, he told me a while back.”
Media expert Ron Vergouwen speaks in a tweet about a musical greatness. “The singing voice of the 80s.” Kasper van Kooten also reflects on the sad news. “He is no longer, but his heart never sleeps,” he quotes from a song text by Vrienten.