- Composer: Alphonsus Johannes Maria Diepenbrock (2 september 1862 -- 5 april 1921)
- Performers: Elly Ameling (soprano), Richte van der Meer (cello), Dalton Baldwin (piano)
- Year of recording: 1980-1981
Berceuse, for mezzo-soprano, cello and piano, written in 1912.
One movement: Andantino
Diepenbrock composed his Berceuse for mezzo-soprano, cello and piano in October 1912 as a present for his friends Gérard and Julie Hekking-Cahen on the occasion of the birth of their daughter Françoise. A few months earlier, on 25 June, Hekking – since 1904 the leader of the cellos in the Concertgebouw Orchestra – had given an excellent performance of the solo in the last movement of Diepenbrock’s incidental music to Vondel’s Gijsbrecht van Aemstel (RC 108). In 1909 his wife Julie had premiered Mandoline (Mandolin, RC 99). The couple had a cordial relationship with Diepenbrock and his wife.
At the suggestion of Elisabeth, Diepenbrock first attempted to write an instrumental lullaby. When that did not work out, he was inspired by a poem (without title) from van Lerberghe’s La chanson d’Ève (The Song of Eve) which Johanna Raphael-Jongkindt had sent him not long before. On 26 October he started a sketch and four days later, on 30 October, he had completed the composition. On 1 November a neat copy was delivered to the Hekkings as a present. They were so delighted with it, that they visited the composer to play through the work that very same evening. It has not been documented whether or when they performed it in public. Possibly the performance in Zaal Heystee in Amsterdam on 8 May 1916 by the mezzo-soprano Berthe Seroen (1882-1957), the cellist Marix Loevensohn (1880-1943) and the pianist Hans Franco Mendes (1890-1951) was its actual premiere.
Diepenbrock considered the poem charming, sonorous and "not at all unmusical". With his setting in a 6/8 metre, flowing melodies and harmonies that flexibly adapt to the lightness and seriousness of the text, he turned it into an appealing lullaby that has maintained its charm to this very day. It concludes with a long hummed garland. Especially the version with only piano accompaniment (RC 112) was popular, but the original setting was also performed in public, e.g. by Elisabeth Simons (1886-1971), the cellist Charles van Isterdael (1873-1962) and the pianist Hans Goemans at a special soiree for the Dutch Red Cross and the committee for Belgian war victims in the Royal French Theatre in The Hague on 3 December 1917.
The berceuse is dedicated "à Julie Hekking".
![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Genw1O2l7p0/mqdefault.jpg)