Alphons Diepenbrock - Der König in Thule

Alphons Diepenbrock (1862-1921) Der König in Thule : for mezzo soprano and piano (1886) text by Johan Wolfgang von Goethe Jard van Nes, mezzo soprano Rudolf Jansen, piano dedicated to Cateau Esser Alphons Diepenbrock grew up in a bourgeois Catholic family which had a fervent interest in literature and music. Music lessons formed a natural part of his upbringing, and as a child Diepenbrock was already a skilled player of the piano, organ and violin. His early ambition was to become a conductor and composer. However, his parents were wary of an uncertain future, and in 1880 he therefore opted to study classical languages, his other great passion, at the University of Amsterdam. In the meantime he acquired an understanding of the theory of music on his own initiative, and with a small choir of students performed works by Palestrina and Sweelinck, his favourite masters of polyphony. He added to his knowledge by making an intensive study of Wagner from piano reductions. During this period he also composed an Academische feestmarsch for wind orchestra (1882), various choral works and songs. After he was awarded his doctorate with distinction (1888) for a thesis on Seneca, he became a teacher of classics at the gymnasium in s-Hertogenbosch. While there, he wrote a number of spiritual pieces for voice and organ, and the Missa in die festo for tenor solo, double male choir and organ (1890-1894), a monumental work which represents a milestone in the history of Catholic church music in the Netherlands. Diepenbrock married in 1895 and returned to Amsterdam, where he supported himself by giving private tuition in Latin and Greek and by writing articles on music, painting, literature, philology, cultural history and politics. These inspired essays bear witness to wide reading and great erudition (he was one of the first people in the Netherlands to have an in-depth knowledge of Nietzsche); they also show Diepenbrocks substantial literary talent. With his writings, he pitched himself into the midst of the debate on the direction in which art should follow in the coming century. He was filled with ideals, widely cherished at the time, of community life centred around a mystical religiosity, in which the arts would together provoke higher thoughts in the people. Such a work to bear these ideals out was the Missa, published in 1896 with accompanying multi-coloured vignettes, following a medieval example, by Antoon Der Kinderen, who shared Diepenbrocks aims. However, though the publication focussed attention on the composer, the piece was not heard until 20 years later. Instead, a major breakthrough came with the first performance, by Willem Mengelberg and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1900, of the two Hymnen an die Nacht for voice and orchestra. Following the première two years later of the grandiose Te Deum (1897), Diepenbrock came to be recognized as the leading Dutch composer of his time. His work was highly regarded by Mahler, who became friends with him during his first period as a guest conductor in Amsterdam (1903). This admiration was mutual: when the Concertgebouw Orchestra invited Diepenbrock to conduct a few concerts of his own compositions, he also took the opportunity to perform Mahler and Debussy, in his view the most significant innovators among his contemporaries. In addition to many instrumentations of songs and revisions of earlier works, with regard to the clarification of orchestral sonorities, the years after 1905 brought forth a constant stream of new compositions, such as the impressive Im grossen Schweigen for baritone and orchestra (1906) based on an aphorism of Nietzsche, and the marvellous incidental music for the mythical comedy Marsyas of De betooverde bron (Marsyas or The Enchanted Well, 1909-1910), which is rooted in a classical Greek legend. However, with the outbreak of World War I, Diepenbrock became so preoccupied that he did not feel able to begin a major work during its course. His commitment to the Allies (he was active in the Ligue des Pays Neutres) is expressed in a number of anti-German articles and songs such as Les poilus de l’Argonne and Belges, debout!. During the last few years of his life he composed incidental music to plays which mattered greatly to him: Aristophanes The Birds, Goethes Faust and Sophocles Electra.