On 4 November 1906, after his Hymnus de Spiritu Sancto for male choir and organ (RC 69) had been turned down by the Episcopal Committee for the Approval of Compositions for the Church, Diepenbrock composed a Veni Creator Spiritus for male choir a cappella for chaplain Cornelis van Erven Dorens. In the accompanying letter of 7 November he gives the following explanation:
I send you […] a new Veni Creator a cappella, which I wrote last Sunday. I cannot make it any more simple, and yet it will appear strange enough to the “Anachronistic” Censors of the committee. It is peculiar that you and I were not asked to appear before the committee. It is also illogical, because if they want to make the music “frugal” by adopting only the Regensburg style, then why not radically abolish all polyphonic music. (BD V:251)
The Veni Creator Spiritus is four-part and almost entirely homophonic. The structure is determined by a musical refrain concluding every strophe, of which the material is derived from Diepenbrock’s own Hymnus de Spiritus Sancto. In that piece it can be found for instance in the last line of the first strophe on the text “(Quae) tu creasti pectora” (see mm. 11-15 in RC 69). Another structural element is the repetition of the opening motive (mm. 1-4) at the beginning of strophes 2, 5 and 7. In the first line of the third and sixth strophe the melody of the Gregorian hymn is quoted; a striking feature here is the triplet figure which in this work only appears in this passage. Another remarkable aspect of this composition is the fact that in every strophe the progression or modulation to the key of C major in the final line is realised in a different manner.
At first Diepenbrock left the decision whether or not to submit the work for approval to the church censorship committee to van Erven Dorens, as we can read in Diepenbrock’s letter of 7 November 1906: You decide what you want to do with it. If it is investigated and discarded again, I will withdraw for good.
(BD V:251) However, a few weeks later Diepenbrock added: Under no circumstances should you submit the 2nd Veni either. I am too convinced of the unwillingness of that lot.
(BD V:268) Van Erven Dorens answered: I will not submit anything else of yours to the committee. If they do not like peaches, then let them eat turnips.
(BD V:272)
After that Diepenbrock did not write anything else for the Roman Catholic liturgy. Even the eventual approval for the performance of his mass (RC 27) in August 1916 did not change his mind.
On 15 October 1929 the Veni Creator Spiritus was submitted to the Episcopal Committee after all. On 12 February 1930 it was granted the nihil obstat. That same year the Alphons Diepenbrock Foundation published the work through Alsbach.
Robert Spannenberg
