Search - Diepenbrock, Vonk, Residente Orch the Hague :: Diepenbrock: Orchestral Works & Symphonic Songs; De Vogels; Suites: Marsyas, Electra; 3 Hymns; Die Nacht; Im Grossen Schweigen

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

DAVID BRYSON | Glossop Derbyshire England | 09/20/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Alphons Diepenbrock was a sad-looking man with very silly hair, but his music is rather good in my opinion. The liner-note by Eduard Reeser gives us a fair amount of detail on Diepenbrock's background, something I'd say is absolutely essential with this composer. This is in no sense `absolute' music. It is music that reflects and expresses Diepenbrock's ideas. He was, I learn, `passionately involved with literature and painting, cultural history and politics, philosophy and religion, and he published important polemical writings on these subjects.' He seems to have had better luck with his writings than with his composings, because much of his music was unpublished in his lifetime. His education was in the Greek and Latin classics, although Reeser claims that he had an aversion from the drier aspects of these studies. I hope his thinking was less simplistic than that, and he might have noticed that the most eminent practitioner of the severe form of classical scholarship in his time was also a poet of distinction, namely Housman. Another strong influence was Nietzsche, whose daunting mien graces the frontispiece of the set. Of the four vocal numbers here one is by Nietzsche, one by Hoelderlin and two by Novalis. The classical background is represented orchestrally by an overture to Aristophanes' Birds, a suite arranged by the composer from his incidental music to a forgotten play on the theme of the faun Marsyas who disastrously challenged Apollo to a contest in musicianship, and another suite arranged by Reeser from the music for Sophocles' Electra.



The texts in the four vocal items are concerned in different ways with the big sleep with which our little lives are rounded and with the majesty of infinity. The Novalis Hymn might seem religious, but it is religious mysticism, which in my own view just takes religion as a basis and a metaphor for perceptions far removed from mainstream Christianity and has more in common with the outright paganism of Nietzsche. There is no concept of redemption or salvation in any of these four songs, and although the tone is serene (and in the Hymn rapturous) it is without optimism either. The nearest we come to that is probably in the defiant poem of Nietzsche, and Diepenbrock's approach to Nietzsche contrasts sharply with that of the major composer whom he most resembles, namely Strauss. Strauss's focus was on life, and he was responsive to the pagan exuberance of Nietzsche's poetry, which is a different kettle of fish from Nietzsche's philosophy. Philosophy is concerned with meaning, and meaning is a thing of the intellect. Nietzsche's poetry seeks to escape from meaning and sense as being shackles and restrictions on the spirit, but the significance of all that for Diepenbrock is only the stillness and infinity that comes with the rejection of speech and everything speech is about.



At the musical level I hear echoes of Strauss specifically in the orchestration and in the distinctive way Strauss had with changes of key, but the idiom is very Straussian in general. If I were to work at it I could detect some faint echoes of Mahler, but they don't seem to me to amount to much. There is actually a non-vocal `Hymn' here too, for solo violin and orchestra, and I was reminded of Bruch. However I imagine that any work in this form from a late Germanic romantic (there was no distinctive Dutch school of much significance at this time) inevitably recalls Bruch. Compositions about a faun with a flute are bound to suggest Debussy, but otherwise I find no influences from elsewhere. The format and scale of the four songs are similar to those of Sibelius's Luonnotar, but Diepenbrock is as un-Finnish as he is un-Italian. A specially piquant contrast is with the greatest of all Nietzsche settings, Delius's Mass of Life. If ever a composer was a one-off, Delius was, he was little known and regarded in Germany despite his German name and lineage, and I would have been astounded to hear any suggestion of his style here, but in his reaction to the spirit of Nietzsche Delius is far closer to Strauss than Diepenbrock is.



This set is, in all essentials, excellent. The recording, originally from 1990 with digital remastering in 2002, is not as vivid as I might have liked, but it's not bad by any means. The performances, from all participants without exception including the solo violin Emmy Verhey, are admirable in their stylistic command and technical proficiency, and there should be a special word of commendation for orchestra and conductor in this music which must be difficult in much the way Strauss himself is difficult. Linda Finnie the mezzo has two numbers to perform, the tenor Christoph Homberger and the bass Robert Holl one apiece, and admirable they all seem to me. This music deserves top-flight advocacy and it deserves more frequent performance than it gets that I know of. In addition to the fine essay by Reeser the liner gains my approval for including resumes of conductor, soloists and orchestra. All texts are given in full in English, German and French. Having been convinced by the music of Diepenbrock I have also taken the hint from the advertisements for other Chandos discs of Hol, Dopper, Voormolen and Vermeulen. Before acquiring this set I think that the only Dutch composer whose name I could recall since Sweelink three centuries prior was Julius Roentgen, (the gentleman called Beethoven being in fact German). The ultra-serious Diepenbrock is a far more formidable proposition than Roentgen, and I am only too grateful to have been given this opportunity to repair a significant lacuna in my knowledge of music."