Alfons Diepenbrock

Synopsis

It was the fashion in the late 19th century to decorate concert halls with the names of famous composers like Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Of course, over time some composers once very popular fell out of favor, and many old concert hall walls included names like Cherubini and Meyerbeer, composers who nowadays are performed only on rare occasions.

In Amsterdam, the main hall of the acoustically famous Concertgebouw boats a pantheon of over two dozen composers’ names as part of its interior decoration, and, not surprisingly, a few Dutch composers are included in the mix. Most of the native sons so honored are probably unfamiliar outside of the Netherlands, however. Take for example Alfons Diepenbrock, a self-taught composer and conductor born in Amsterdam who lived from 1862 to 1921. Diepenbrock composed a small body of big orchestral works in the late Romantic style of Gustav Mahler, who was a close friend.

In Amsterdam on today’s date in 1906, the Concertgebouw Orchestra and conductor Willem Mengelberg premiered a work of Diepenbrock’s, In Great Silence — a Mood Poem based on an Aphorism of Friedrich Nietzsche. This music sounds a little like a lost movement from some big Mahler symphony, and while these days the name Diepenbrock might not be as familiar as Mahler, maybe that’s something we should work on correcting!

Music Played in Today's Program

Alfons Diepenbrock (1862-1921): In Great Silence (A Mood Poem based on an Aphorism of Friedrich Nietzsche); Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Riccardo Chailly, conductor (live recording); Royal Concertgebouw Recordings 97033

On This Day

Births

• 1804 - Russian composer Mikail Glinka (Gregorian date: June 1)

• 1943 - American composer Tison Street, in Boston

Deaths

• 1896 - German pianist and composer, Clara Wieck Schumann, 76, in Frankfurt

• 1995 - American composer Ulysses Kay, 78, in Englewood, New Jersey

Premieres

• 1914 - Miaskovsky: Symphony No. 1, in Pavlovsk (Julian date: June 2)

• 1937 - John J. Becker: Symphony No. 3 (Symphonia Brevis), at the Saint Paul Auditorium by the Twin Cities Civic (Federal Music Project, Minnesota) Orchestra, with the composer conducting

• 1948 - Milhaud: Symphony No.4, in Paris, composer conducting

• 1950 - Dallapiccola: opera Il Prigionero (The Prisoner) (first staged production), in Florence at the Teatro Comunale. The opera has been premiered in a concert performance in Turin on December 1, 1949.

• 1973 - Menotti: Suite for Two Cellos and Piano, in New York, with cellists Gregor Piatigorsky and Leslie Parnas, and pianist Charles Wadsworth

• 1974 - Panufnik: Sinfonia Concertante, in London

• 1974 - Sondheim: incidental music for The Frogs (after Aristophanes), at the Yale swimming pool

• 1977 - Hovhaness: Rubaiyat for narrator, accordion, and orchestra, in New York City

• 1979 - Tobias Picker: Romance for violin and piano, at York College, by Linda Quan (violin) and Aleck Karis (piano)

• 1989 - Katherine Hoover: Quintet Da Pacem, for piano quintet, at Alice Tully Hall in New York, by members of the New Jersey Chamber Music Society

Others

• 1846 - American premiere of Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (Choral) by New York Philharmonic Society at New York’s Castle Garden, George Loder, Jr. conducting. It appears that the Society tried unsuccessfully to invite Mendelssohn to attend this festival performance, which they organized to raise funds for “the erection of a suitable edifice for musical purposes” in Manhattan. The next documented performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 outside of New York was given in Boston on February 5, 1853 by the combined forces of the Handel and Haydn Society plus the Germania Society. Other 19th-century regional premieres of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 occurred in New Haven (Dec. 10, 1870), Columbus (Dec. 13, 1870), Chicago (Dec. 17, 1870), Philadelphia (April 27, 1874), Milwaukee (Oct. 22, 1878), Baltimore (May 3, 1884) and Pittsburgh (May 25, 1889).

• 1943 - The U.S. Marine Band performs a special wartime concert on the White House South Lawn for President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Despite a steady rain, Roosevelt and Churchill stayed throughout and sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic with the band at the conclusion.