[1] De Koninck was one of a group of four Amsterdam composers of foreign origin who, in the period around 1700, contributed to the temporary flowering of Dutch vocal music and whose names are linked to the bookseller Cornelis Sweerts and the poet Abraham Alewijn.
In 1705 Alewijn and Sweerts were the poets in the Boertige en ernstige minnezangen, set to music by Petersen, Anders, and De Koninck.
In his introduction to the art of singing and playing, Sweerts listed almost all composers (Hendrik Anders, David Petersen, Johannes Schenck, Carl Rosier and Servaes de Koninck) who played a part in the temporary blossoming of music using Dutch texts in the late 17th century: De Koninck, as well as Anders and Petersen, were active in a genre of the lyrical theatre pretty near to opera, the Zangspel, in which machinery, instrumental music, and theatre songs had an important share.
In order to sell them better, it had emphatically been stated they were composed in the French and Italian manner;[2] These indications on the style fit into Roger's publishing policy, as he wanted to give an international hallmark to his fund.
This hybrid style, however, illustrates undoubtedly the international, eclectic musical environment in Amsterdam at the end of the 17th century.
In this volume, De Koninck also experiments with larger and more elaborate occupations which – not surprisingly – are reminiscent of the theatre; seven songs in his collection are combined to make a dialogue of Coridon and Climene,[3] which ends with a duet in the Italian manner.
[4] Another volume by De Koninck, issued by Roger, and which deserves special attention, is his opus 7, Sacrarum armoniarum (1699), in which the impact of the recent Italian musical developments is best reflected in the motet to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mortales Sperate, especially in the two small da capo arias for tenor and alto and in the increased share of instruments in continuous dialogue with the singers.