CD I:
Stage Works and Orchestral Works
Marsyas Concert Suite - Overture De Vogels (The Birds) - Elektra Symphonic Suite -
Hymn for Violin and Orchestra
CD II:
Symphonic Songs
Die Nacht - Hymne an die nacht Muss immer der Morgen - Hymne an die Nacht
Gehoben ist der Stein -Im grossen Schweigen
CD III:
Orchestrated Songs
Wenige wissen das Geheimniss der Liebe - Lied der Spinnerin - Der Abend - Hinüber
wall’ ich - Puisque l’aube grandit –Recueillement - Les chats - Avondzang - Zij sluimert -
Ik ben in eenzaamheid niet meer alleen - Ecoutez la chanson bien douce - Berceuse
CD IV:
Works for Soloist, Choir and Orchestra
Missa in die festo:
Kyrie and Gloria - Reyzangen from Gysbrecht van Aemstel - Hymn to
Rembrandt - Te Deum laudamus
CD V & VI:
Songs
CD VII:
Works for Choir a Cappella
CD VIII:
Missa in die festo
DVD:
Missa in die festo

The year 2012 marks the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Alphons Diepenbrock’s birth in Amsterdam and the one hundredth anniversary of his acclamation as the most important Dutch composer since Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck during the second Nederlandse Muziekfeest.

The greater part of Diepenbrock’s music is composed for voices. Of his almost one hundred separate compositions, there are less than five that use neither the human voice nor a written text. A text was so essential to the full musical effect of Diepenbrock’s music that it is hardly possible to imagine that someone could understand his works well without an equal understanding of the texts that he used. These texts were never chosen at random nor easily; they influenced and defined not only the general atmosphere of a song but also the significance of every modulation and every subconscious thought, for they defined the musical unity of the piece just as much as each separate musical phrase or its musical explanation.

Gustav Mahler had visited his colleague and friend Alphons Diepenbrock in Amsterdam in 1906 and remarked about Diepenbrock’s songs that “Sie sind mir alle sehr lieb.” Diepenbrock had indeed developed from a classics scholar into a successful Lied composer between 1900 and 1910; his songs for voice and piano found their way into concert halls throughout the Netherlands thanks to the support of a growing multitude of prominent singers. The husband and wife duo of Marie Versteegh and Gerard Zalsman performed them in concert halls as far afield as Shanghai, Tokyo and Chicago. What is more, Diepenbrock’s songs for voice and orchestra also developed a genre that was practically unknown at that time; the majority of Mahler’s songs for voice and orchestra are essentially songs for voice and piano with the accompaniment transcribed for orchestra, whilst Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde was composed after Diepenbrock’s great orchestral songs.