Alphons Diepenbrock: Missa in die festo (1890), Kyrie

Diepenbrock: Mass; part 1(1/1): Kyrie. Performance St. John's Cathedral, Den Bosch, The Netherlands, 1985

THE LIFE AND WORK OF ALPHONS DIEPENBROCK
========================================
Alphons Diepenbrock was born in Amsterdam on 2 September 1862 in a well-to-do Catholic family. His early ambition was to become a conductor and composer, but his parents, wary of an uncertain future, opposed this which led him to study classical languages instead. After his doctorate (1888) for a thesis on Seneca, he became a teacher of classics at the grammar school in Den Bosch.

In 1895 he married and returned to Amsterdam making a living by giving private tuition in Latin and Greek and by writing articles on music, painting, literature, philology and cultural history, inspired essays bearing witness to wide reading and great erudition and also showing substantial literary talent.
With these writings he also 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.

His first breakthrough as a composer 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. The première two years later of the grandiose Te Deum for double choir, soloists and orchestra (1897), made him to be recognized as the leading Dutch composer of his time.

Inspired chiefly by poetry, Diepenbrocks musical output is dominated by vocal works. His sources cover many centuries: classical antiquity, religious texts from the Middle Ages, old Dutch poems and choruses by Vondel, Goethe and the German Romantics, Verlaine and Baudelaire, to contemporary writers such as Gide and the young Dutch poets Jacques Perk, Lodewijk van Deyssel and Albert Verwey. His choice of text reflects his penchant for mysticism and spiritual rapture.

Diepenbrock's music is both passionate and sensitive, without falling into the excesses of late Romanticism. Two elements are significant in his early works: the vocal polyphony of the Palestrina style and the chromatic harmony of Wagner. By the time he composed his magnificent Mass (1890) Wagnerian infuences had disappeared completely, as did the ornateness of the harmony. From that time on modality, independent voice-leading, resulting in true polymelody, and melodies which could be considered 'Mediterranean' in their southern cantabile and natural diction had become the main characteristics of his music.

Diepenbrock died in Amsterdam, on April 5, 1921.

* Adapted from a more detailed biography written by doctor Ton Braas to be found at http://www.classical-composers.org/comp/diepenbr

Category:

Music

Tags:

• diepenbrock
• mass
• missa
• solemnis
• dutch
• composer

[BatesJr]

I cannot believe this sublime work has found its way onto YouTube. Thank you, carminum.