Eifel music festival
The Eifel Music Festival is a sacred music festival, which takes place annually since 1946 on the weekend after Pentecost in Kloster Steinfeld / Eifel takes place. It is the oldest music festival still in existence in the Rhineland. Today the sponsor is the Euskirchen district in cooperation with the Friends of the Steinfeld Monastery.
Conception
In keeping with the spirit of the monastic venue, the Eifel Music Festival is a Catholic church music festival. The tradition of the Missa solemnis , the solemn service accompanied by the choir and orchestra , is maintained in the festive high mass . The highlight of the music festival is an oratorio concert on Sunday afternoon in which the great church music works from Monteverdi to Bruckner are performed. In addition to the church music concerts, there has been a chamber concert on Saturday evening since the late 1950s , with a "secular" program that is staged accordingly at various locations in the extensive monastery complex. The festival program was temporarily supplemented by an organ concert with well-known organists at the Steinfelder Balthasar-König organ on Sunday lunchtime.
Artist
Until 1963 the artistic direction was in the hands of the Aachen cathedral music director and founder Prof. Theodor Bernhard Rehmann (1895–1963). Conductors were u. a. Wolfgang Sawallisch , Romanus Hubertus , Wolfgang Trommer and Hans Walter Kämpfel .
history
The Eifel Music Festival was founded in 1946 on the initiative of the Aachen Bishop Johannes Joseph van der Velden and the Aachen Cathedral Kapellmeister Theodor Bernhard Rehmann . According to their idea, it was supposed to bring “music culture” to the impoverished and war-damaged Eifel. After a few years, the Eifel Music Festival developed into a popular folk festival in the region. After the high mass and organ concert, there was an open-air performance in the cloister courtyard as a symphony concert with the Aachen Symphony Orchestra and works primarily by Bruckner and Beethoven . The Aachen Cathedral Choir also held the position of Cathedral Kapellmeister under Rehmann's successor, Prelate Dr. Rudolf Pohl , maintaining the tradition of organizing the high mass at the Eifel Music Festival musically. For many years, the afternoon oratorio concert was in the hands of the Bonn Bach Society and its conductor Professor Gustav Classens . In the 1970s and 1980s, other renowned concert choirs from Cologne, Mainz and Düsseldorf also performed at the Eifel Music Festival.
literature
- Hans-Peter Göttgens: The Eifel Music Festival . In: Musicological Institute of the University of Cologne (ed.): Communications of the Working Group for Rhenish Music History eV No. 89 , Cologne 2007.
- Alfred Beaujean: 25 years of the Eifel Music Festival . In: Kreis Schleiden (Ed.): Heimatjahrbuch 1970 . Bonn 1969.