In 1972 FOCUS had already obtained world success and its musicians' talent was deservedly recognized. Was in this same year that Thijs van Leer began his solo career, parallelly to the work in FOCUS. The debuts was the album Instrospection, that would be the first of a series with the same name. This series sold very much, mainly in Belgium and Netherlands.

Sincerely the series Introspection probably doesn't please the most traditional rocker, because its not rock albums. In Introspection Thijs show us many versions of classic music and include new versions of his compositions in FOCUS. This confirm my thesis that if Thijs van Leer or Jan Akkerman had been born in the middle-ages, today they would be considered so important for the music like Bach, Handel, Albinoni, etc... Our friend Irene kindly sent us these photos, then we made this page that I would like to dedicate to the memory of Rogier van Otterloo.

Rodrigo Mantovani

1 - Thijs, Letty and Rogier in a recording session ; 2 - Thijs received a golden album

The first picture is taken from the backside of the LP, where you see Thijs van Leer, Letty de Jong and Rogier van Otterloo in a recording session. The second picture is from the moment Thijs received a golden album, so at that moment there were 50.000 Dutch copies sold.

Thijs van Leer and Rogier van Otterloo always remained close friends until Rogier's death in 1988. One of Rogier's sons is even called "Thijs". I admired Rogier very much and I have also some items about him in my FOCUS scrapbook. I am glad he lives on in the many great music that he composed, arranged or conducted!

Irene Heinicke