General German Singing Festival

Festival hall of the song festival on the Burgfeld

The General German Singing Festival took place in Lübeck in 1847 .

background

In July 1846, the North German Singers' Association , in which the majority of the North German song boards were united, decided to organize its singing festival planned for the following year as the General German Singing Festival . During this time there had already been several such singing festivals that were related to the movement of singing and gymnastics in Vormärz. The first probably took place in Frankfurt am Main in 1838 under the title "First General German Singing Festival". The participants (it was exclusively male choirs) from all over Germany (which at that time was split up into many different states as the German Confederation ) was not only united by singing, but also by political demands for national unification, civil rights and freedom. Thousands of singers took part. The first German Singing Festival took place from August 4th to 6th, 1845 in Würzburg , but was not organizationally linked to the other events. The Bavarian king had banned a Franconian song festival in Nuremberg in 1846.

The committee of the General German Singing Festival from 1847 was composed of the director of the Society for the Promotion of Charitable Activities, Johann Heinrich Behn , the lawyer Friedrich Krüger and the educator Carl Heinrich Dettmer , who belonged to the Jung-Lübeck district . Music director was the Munich court conductor Franz Lachner .

Around 1,800 participants from over 100 locations throughout the German-speaking area came to the singing festival, which was held from July 26th to 29th, 1847; Because of the travel involved at that time with considerable effort and expense, song boards from northern Germany formed the majority, but numerous choral societies had also appeared from the other regions. The venue was a temporary festival hall built especially for the occasion on the Burgfeld .

procedure

The majority of the participants arrived in Lübeck on July 26th, a Saturday, and were welcomed to the market . After lunch together in the festival hall, the singing festival was officially heralded there at 4.30 p.m. with the opening concert. The welcome song of the Lübeck Liedertafel for this occasion was created by Lübeck Music Director Carl Bach and Emanuel Geibel .

The following day the celebrations began with a chant blown from the Seven Towers . After rehearsals in the morning and early afternoon, a concert took place in the festival hall from 4 p.m. At 8 p.m. an open-air party began, with various clubs giving vocal performances on two stages while a ball was taking place in the hall.

Monday began with a Reveille train through the city from 7 a.m., followed by new rehearsals. At 1 p.m., the participants gathered in front of the cathedral and went in a procession to the Burgfeld, where the second concert took place outside at 3 p.m., followed by a feast.

The last day of the singing festival started again at 6 a.m. by a Reveille train. At 7 o'clock the participants gathered at the market, performed songs and went to the port in a procession, where they embarked on a festival trip to Travemünde . There they went on a trip to the Baltic Sea and then performed songs at the seaside resort before the company returned to Lübeck at 7 p.m. and gathered again in the festival hall at the end of the song festival.

literature

Looking back at the General German Singing Festival in Lübeck from June 26th to 29th, 1847: With three lithographs. Lübeck: GC Schmidt Söhne 1847: digitized version , Bavarian State Library
Gustav Lindtke: The city of Buddenbrooks . Schmidt-Römhild publishing house , 1981
Society for patriotic history (ed.): Yearbooks for regional studies of the duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg , Volume I. Commission of the academic bookstore, Kiel 1858
Amusements , Issue No. 110, July 11, 1847. Wailandt's Wittib publishing house, Aschaffenburg
Franconian Merkur , issue no.15, January 15, 1847

Individual evidence

^ Sybille Grübel: Timeline of the history of the city from 1814-2006. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Volume I-III / 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001-2007; III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. Volume 2, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 , pp. 1225-1247, here: p. 1228.
^ Bernhard Janz: The first German song festival in Würzburg. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Volume I-III / 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001-2007; III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 , pp. 1048-1052 and 1358.
^ Max Döllner : History of the development of the city of Neustadt an der Aisch up to 1933. Ph. C. W. Schmidt, Neustadt a. d. Aisch 1950, OCLC 42823280 ; New edition to mark the 150th anniversary of the Ph. C. W. Schmidt publishing house, Neustadt an der Aisch 1828–1978. Ibid 1978, ISBN 3-87707-013-2 , p. 660.

[1] Sybille Grübel: Timeline of the history of the city from 1814-2006. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Volume I-III / 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001-2007; III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. Volume 2, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 , pp. 1225-1247, here: p. 1228.

[2] Bernhard Janz: The first German song festival in Würzburg. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Volume I-III / 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001-2007; III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 , pp. 1048-1052 and 1358.

[3] Max Döllner : History of the development of the city of Neustadt an der Aisch up to 1933. Ph. C. W. Schmidt, Neustadt a. d. Aisch 1950, OCLC 42823280 ; New edition to mark the 150th anniversary of the Ph. C. W. Schmidt publishing house, Neustadt an der Aisch 1828–1978. Ibid 1978, ISBN 3-87707-013-2 , p. 660.