Ernst Sigg

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Ernst Sigg (born May 2, 1892 in Basel , † April 19, 1966 there ) was a Swiss church musician and high school teacher .

Life

Ernst Sigg grew up as the eldest of four sons of the city missionary Johann Jakob Sigg in Basel and graduated from the upper secondary school in 1911. He received his first organ lessons from the later Bern Münster organist Ernst Graf , and later from the Basel Münster organist Adolf Hamm at the Basel Conservatory , where he also took singing , piano and music theory courses. At the request of his father, he decided to take the secondary teacher examination as his main course, for which he studied French and English philology and musicology with Karl Nef at the University of Basel . Study visits took him abroad to Edinburgh and the Moudon in Vaud  .

After graduating in 1915, Sigg moved back to western Switzerland, where he studied organ and theory with William Montillet at the Conservatoire de musique de Genève . He was soon a sought-after accompanist on the organ, piano or  harpsichord in Geneva’s Victoria Hall ; in December 1917 he played the continuo at the Conservatory's Christmas concert under the direction of Frank Martin . In 1920 Sigg returned to Basel and taught French and singing at the boys' secondary school. He took over the leadership of the church choir at the Elisabethenkirche (until 1936) and joined the Basel Bach Choir ; there he met Madeleine Burckhardt, whom he married in 1921 and had two children with her.

In 1929 Sigg was elected to succeed Rudolf Löw-Schäfer as organist at the Elisabethenkirche and as a singing teacher at the humanistic grammar school . There he took over the direction of the «elite choir» (choir made up of boys of the elite class) and initiated the school's own orchestra collegium musicum (not to be confused with the professional orchestra of the same name, founded in 1951 ). From 1930 Sigg also taught school music at the mathematical and natural science high school . In 1935 he founded a private choir «Kantorei St. Martin », which specialized in small-scale performances of Bach cantatas . In 1939 he expanded the elite choir to include tenors and basses from the upper classes of grammar schools and renamed it collegium musicum vocale .

In 1951 he stopped his private choir, four years later he resigned from his posts at the grammar school. In 1960 he gave up his last position as organist at the Elisabethenkirche and from then on devoted himself to painting and extensive hikes in the Alps. In 1966 Sigg died of a weak heart.

Aftermath

With his choirs and the school orchestra, Sigg performed numerous works by Johann Sebastian Bach ; the elite choir also played frequently in the minster concerts of the Basler Gesangverein . Whenever possible, he performed his concerts with historical instruments and did pioneering work in Basel's musical life even before the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis was founded.

Various vocal works were premiered under Sigg's direction in Basel: Johann Ernst Bach ( Passion Oratorio ), Dietrich Buxtehude (six cantatas), Georg Friedrich Händel (three anthems), Joseph Haydn ( Nikolaimesse ), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ( Sparrow Mass ), Henry Purcell (Psalm, Cantata), Johann Theodor Roemhildt ( St. Matthew Passion ) and Georg Philipp Telemann ( The Day of Judgment ).

Frieder Liebendörfer , Sigg's successor as singing teacher at the grammar school, founded the “Motettenchor Region Basel” in 1979, which is in the tradition of the St. Elisabethen Church Choir, which is called “Motettenchor” under Sigg's direction.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Sigg, Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sigg-Burckhardt, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss church musician and high school teacher
DATE OF BIRTH May 2, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH April 19, 1966
Place of death Basel