Bad Kissingen spa orchestra
The spa orchestra of the spa town of Bad Kissingen has officially existed since May 1, 1837. Since 2018 it has been called the " Staatsbad Philharmonie Kissingen ". It consists of 13 permanent musicians (as of 2018). In April 2012 it received an entry in the Guinness Book of Records and was recognized as the “most performing ensemble in the world” with 727 appearances per year.
Historical development of the Bad Kissingen spa music
Early days
As early as the 17th and 18th centuries, the court orchestra had occasional visits by the prince-bishop's rulers from Würzburg . At least in the 1784 season, the Würzburg field music, the forerunner of today's military bands , played for the spa concert. But otherwise the social life in Bad Kissingen was less entertaining, the musical offer was even inadequate. The doctor Adam Elias von Siebold (1775–1828) wrote in 1828: "The music in Kissingen had been very bad for several years, although the spa guests paid a significant fee for it." Also the brothers Peter and Ferdinand Bolzano , who leased the spa since 1824 this should have been noticed, but at that time they were still busy modernizing the neglected infrastructure of the spa.
The first spa orchestra started playing in 1837
It was not until 1836 that the Bolzanos engaged the Bohemian conductor Johann Kliegl (1808–1883), who was enthusiastically received by the audience during his season guest performance with 15 musicians - including his six brothers - for the coming course season from May 1, 1837. This The date became the hour of birth of the Bad Kissingen spa orchestra with regular spa concerts as we know them today.
However, the orchestra was initially only made up of winds ; the strings were only added in the 1838 season: the bath commissioner at the time, Carl Moritz Freiherr von Thüngen , wrote to the royal government on January 31, 1838, supporting the wish of the Leipzig- born theater entrepreneur Eduard Geyser to set up theater music. The spa orchestra, which until now had only been made up of winds, did not seem suitable for this. The health resort tenant Bolzano should therefore be encouraged to employ a music group who have practiced on stringed instruments. The government approved the proposal on February 14, 1838. Such was Johann Siegl obliged now also take strings in the orchestra, to meet his contract and now be able to play in the theater even more.
The musicians played in the streets early in the morning to wake up the guests. For the spa concert they sat around a table in the spa garden. Only after the completion of the conversation room built by Friedrich von Gärtner (today Rossini room) in the arcade building was the spa orchestra able to play there in bad weather from 1838. But some listeners found the all too loud music in the hall, which was still empty at the time, as “sounds that hit the ear” . In July 1842, the political scientist Robert von Mohl from Tübingen even complained : "Every morning from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. there is a dilettante concert, which couldn't be more terrible." After each concert, the musicians had to collect money from their then wealthy listeners There was still no fixed salary for her. After the end of the season, the orchestra went on tour until the next season.
Bad Kissinger spa music in the 19th century
From 1845 the Würzburg composer and music director Johann Valentin Hamm (1811–1874) played in the Bad Kissingen spa orchestra every summer. Ten years later (1855) he took over the orchestra as Kapellmeister on behalf of the bath commissioner. The tradition of the morning choir , which is still common today (2012), goes back to him, to which all guests traditionally rise from their seats. Gioachino Rossini reported that he heard a composition by Richard Wagner for the first time during his spa stay in Bad Kissingen in 1856 .
The Mainz Kapellmeister Matthias Heinefetter , who led the spa orchestra into its first heyday, was hired as conductor and music director . Heinefetter brought 34 musicians from the Würzburg theater , the Meiningen court orchestra and from Bohemia and began systematic orchestral and rehearsal work. The spa concerts were now given in the all-round open music pavilion, which was also built in the middle of the spa garden in 1855, the acoustics of which, however, were completely inadequate. The Würzburg Music School wrote in an expert report in 1876 : "At only a moderate distance from the music pavilion, almost all sound effects are lost."
The effects of the German War of 1866 and the Franco-German War (1870/71) brought the Bad Kissinger Kurmusik almost to a standstill, but the situation subsequently improved.
After frequent quarrels about the proper accounting of the income collected from the guests and Heinefetter's own financial disaster - he had taken over financially in building his private house - he resigned from his post as music director in 1871. Since Kapellmeister Valentin Hamm also left the orchestra, the line was now transferred to the new theater director Eduard Reimann (1833–1898). Reimann was contractually obliged by the Badkommissariat to provide a spa band of 32 musicians who, in addition to Bad Kissingen, not only had to play in Bad Bocklet and on the Klaushof, but also had to be available for opera performances in the Bad Kissinger Kurtheater . From May to September the orchestra played in full formation, in the winter months with a smaller cast.
Reimann was also exposed to accusations that he had not correctly booked the income collected from the guests, which is why such collections were made a criminal offense in 1876 and the visitor's tax was levied, from which the orchestra was also paid. The composer and flute virtuoso Julius Manigold belonged to its members from 1892 as a flautist .
Changing concert masters ensured constant quality improvement during the Reimann era, the concerts became more and more demanding. From 1878 to 1888 the Coburg concertmaster Alexander Eichhorn directed the Kissinger Kurmusik, who had participated in the world premiere of Richard Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen in Bayreuth in 1876 . The repertoire was extremely extensive. In May 1878, 486 different works were performed in 62 regular concerts. At the top is Johann Strauss and his family with 50 compositions, followed by Richard Wagner with 37 works, Friedrich von Flotow and Carl Maria von Weber with around 20 each, Gioachino Rossini with 16 and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with 13 compositions. The repertoire also included many pieces that had only premiered a short time before, in addition to Wagner and Strauss, for example, by Johannes Brahms and Camille Saint-Saëns . But the service of the musicians was very tough at the time: during the season there was no day off, the early concert was played between 6 and 8 a.m., the afternoon concert followed from 5 to 7 p.m. and sometimes there was a concert in the conversation room or in the evening Kurtheater an opera on the program. The “excellent spa orchestra” was also praised in Meyer's travel books in 1898 .
The Munich Philharmonic as a spa orchestra
After Reimann's death (1898), the Munich Kaim Orchestra (around 45 musicians) was committed to Bad Kissingen, which had been founded in 1893 by Franz Kaim (1856–1935) as the first Munich professional orchestra and was renamed the Munich Philharmonic in 1908 . Kaim recognized in the summer engagement the opportunity to employ his musicians all year round and thereby to be able to bind them more closely.
The time of the great symphony concerts , the Beethoven and Wagner evenings, began in Bad Kissingen . For the 1899 season, the old and too small music pavilion in the spa garden was replaced by a new, larger one, "which is more splendid and glorious than that of all other seaside resorts in Germany and beyond". When the Bavarian Ministry of Finance refused to continue paying the full orchestra six years later , Kaim moved to Mannheim at the end of the 1905 season .
The Wiener Concertverein as a spa orchestra
After the Munich in 1906 came the Viennese under Martin Spörr (1866–1937). Six years earlier, Ferdinand Löwe had founded the Wiener Concertverein , which later became the Wiener Symphoniker . The revolving stage in the new Bad Kissingen Wandelhalle for the spa concerts (since 1911) and the representative hall in the Regentenbau for the evening concerts (since 1913) became an attraction. The series of great symphony concerts was continued with changing conductors and guest soloists - even during the First World War .
Between the world wars
After the end of the war and the end of the 1918 season, the contract with the Wiener Concertverein ended and the Munich Philharmonic returned. At that time, the Dutch violinist Carl Snoeck (1885–1946) was responsible for the spa music as concertmaster , while the conductor Friedrich Munter (1881–1939) was responsible for the major evening concerts . With him, modern music found its way into Bad Kissingen with works by Richard Strauss , Hugo Wolf and Arthur Honegger ( Pacific 231 ). The biggest stars of the classical music scene - whether as composers, conductors or singers - came to guest performances. The spa orchestra was considered the best in Germany.
Munter's successor Adolf Mennerich (1902–1966) demonstrated his strength of character during the Nazi era . Although he fulfilled the demands placed on him and included “national” and “patriotic evenings” in the program, days later he conducted an entire evening with works by Jewish composers only . Even if this musical resistance was tolerated by the Nazi rulers until 1937, the two Jewish members of the spa orchestra, concertmaster Snoeck and violinist Josef Lengfeld , had to be excluded as early as 1934 . The chorale tradition every morning was not welcomed by the Nazi regime, but it was not abandoned as a tradition even during this difficult time.
100 years of the spa orchestra
In the summer of 1937 Bad Kissingen celebrated the 100th anniversary of its spa orchestra, the local Saale newspaper reported on it in detail. But at the end of August 1942 the spa music ended due to the war, the guests stayed away and the sanatoriums were converted into hospitals.
The years after the Second World War
After the Americans moved in and the spa business slowly revived, the Munich Philharmonic only gave guest performances. The spa concerts were played by the Würzburg Municipal Orchestra until 1949 and the Hof Symphony Orchestra from 1950 . The general music directors Karl Tutein (1887–1984) and Werner Richter-Reichheim signed a few guest stars such as Erna Berger , Rudolf Schock or Yehudi Menuhin , but the change in guests brought about by the new social cure also brought a change in taste. The increased demands on the Hof musicians in their hometown also led to the end of their contract in 1979.
State spa administration founds permanent spa orchestra
The state spa administration had already employed twelve other musicians in the winter season, who after the departure of the Hof Symphony Orchestra from 1980 - now increased to 18 men - now also took over the summer operations under conductor Willibald Sandner . But in 1981 Sandner was replaced by Mario Weber , the former director of a dance orchestra that performed across Europe . Weber recently felt the change of the times and from 1995 had the spa orchestra perform as a brass ballroom orchestra with swing and dance music . It was not until the 82-year-old that the popular music director handed over to Bayer at the insistence of Bayer. Staatsbad Bad Kissingen GmbH privatized the spa administration, which had shrunk to 13 musicians, in 1999 to its long-term deputy and conductor Jaroslav Drasil , music teacher and concert violinist from the Czech Republic . With the support of the Hungarian violinist Zsolt Farkas for five years , he continued the concert program in the usual form until May 2010.
The first woman in the Bad Kissingen spa music
After Drasil's retirement, Staatsbad GmbH put a young woman in the position of chief for the first time in the 175-year history of Bad Kissingen spa music: the then 30-year-old Bulgarian Elena Iossifova took over the spa orchestra on June 1, 2010. It expanded the musical spectrum beyond pure light music. With a range from classical to Rio Reiser and Ton Steine Scherben , she made the orchestra suitable for a festival like the Kissinger Sommer . Iossifova left the spa orchestra at the end of 2017. Her successor was Burghard Toelke on March 1, 2018 .
175 years of the spa orchestra
On the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the Bad Kissingen spa orchestra, the Friends' Association , which was founded on September 13, 2012, organized a gala concert with international guests on December 18, 2012.
State Bath Philharmonic Kissingen
In September 2018, the spa orchestra, led by conductor Burghard Toelke since March, was renamed "Staatsbad Philharmonie Kissingen". This is to make it clear that this is an orchestra that plays at a high level all year round and does not only appear during a limited season within the summer season, as the term spa orchestra suggests.
Records and special features
In April 2012 the Bad Kissingen spa orchestra was included in the Guinness Book of Records . With 727 performances a year - measured from June 1, 2010 to May 31, 2011 -, occasionally up to 15 per week, with its two spa concerts per day as well as additional evening and special concerts - whether as a chamber orchestra or ballroom orchestra - it was recognized as " most performing ensemble in the world ”. The current repertoire comprises around 3000 pieces from classical to modern light music.
On March 20, 2011 trombonist Roman Riedel took part as one of only two German musicians in the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011 in the concert in the Sydney Opera House organized by the YouTube video portal in Sydney ( Australia ) .
Even after 175 years, the Bad Kissingen spa orchestra is still part of the spa town like its seven healing springs . Even today, the orchestra attracts several hundred guests and residents to the Bad Kissingen Wandelhalle every day. For seniors it is an important location factor when looking for an interesting retirement home.
On September 13, 2012, the first "Förderverein Bad Kissinger Kurorchester eV" was founded to support the Bad Kissinger Kurorchester with advertising.
literature
- Thomas Ahnert: The cure makes music , in: Thomas Ahnert, Peter Weidisch: 1200 Years Bad Kissingen , Verlag TA Schachenmeier, Bad Kissingen 2001, page 336f.
- Thomas Ahnert: How music got into a cure - 165 years of the Bad Kissingen spa orchestra , Bayer. Staatsbad GmbH, Bad Kissingen 2002
- Walter Otto Boehm: The spa orchestra in Bad Kissingen from the beginnings to the Second World War , master's thesis, 1992
- Hanns-Helmut Schnebel: Johann Valentin Hamm and the spa music in Bad Kissingen , in: Mainfränkisches Jahrbuch , Volume 59, 2007, page 297f.
Web links
- Sigismund von Dobschütz: 175 years of the Bad Kissingen spa orchestra: guests awakened with music , in: Main-Post from September 4, 2012
- Bad Kissingen State Bath Philharmonic
- Website of the friends' association
Individual evidence
- ^ Spa orchestra in Bad Kissingen becomes Philharmonic ( Memento from September 16, 2018 in the Internet Archive ), Bayerischer Rundfunk September 13, 2018
- ↑ Biographies of all 13 musicians ( online ) at www.badkissingen.de
- ↑ Thomas Mäuser: Kurorchester is in the Guinness Book , in: Saale-Zeitung from April 6, 2012.
- ^ Peter Rauch: Bad Kissingen in the Guinness book; The performance of the spa orchestra caused a sensation , in: Main-Post from April 7, 2012.
- ↑ A musical world record in Bad Kissingen: the spa orchestra plays most of the concerts each year ( memento from October 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) on www.badkissingen.de
- ↑ His grandson Anton Kliegl (1872–1927) became a successful entrepreneur in the USA as well as a patron and honorary citizen of the city of Bad Kissingen.
- ↑ Die Najade , Organ for German Culture and Bathing Life, May 25, 1866, page 30 ( digitized version )
- ↑ Pastime , in: Allgemeine Bad-Zeitung of November 4, 1846, on the occasion of an appearance in Birmingham . The newspaper article criticized the fact that the orchestra in England did not call itself "Kissinger Kurmusik", but that "the gentlemen who have earned so many nice pennies here since 1838 " called themselves "The Bohemian Band". "We know that these patriots are Bohemia, but the country team is not part of the business . "
- ↑ Under Frankish history , Volume 5, Part 2, published by Real, 2002, ISBN 978-3-429-02374-4 , page 202 ( excerpt )
- ↑ Under Frankish history , Volume 5, Part 2, published by Real, 2002, ISBN 978-3-429-02374-4 , page 202 ( excerpt )
- ↑ Bernhard Janz: On the musical pulse of the time . In: Peter Weidisch, Fred Kaspar (ed.): Spa and modernity . Special publications of the Bad Kissingen City Archives, Volume 11, 2017, ISBN 978-3-87717-859-1 , pp. 259-267
- ^ Saale newspaper of June 17, 1899
- ↑ The Free State of Bavaria is still a partner in Bayer today. Staatsbad Bad Kissingen GmbH as well as the owner of several current properties in Bad Kissingen and is financially responsible for this.
- ↑ Thomas Ahnert: The cure makes the music. In: 1200 Jahre Bad Kissingen, Bad Kissingen 2001, ISBN 3-929278-16-2 , p. 342
- ↑ Walter Otto Boehm: “Kissingen has the best spa orchestra in Germany”. The Munich Philharmonic in Bad Kissingen , in: Gabriele E. Meyer (Ed.): Münchner Philharmoniker , Munich 1994, page 105
- ↑ Walter Kempowski : Did you see Hitler? Did you know about it? , 2012 ( digitized version )
- ↑ Ursula Lippold: A violinist is now swinging the baton: Elena Iossifova is the new conductor of the spa orchestra , in: Main-Post from May 29, 2010
- ↑ Biography of Elena Iossifova with photo ( PDF file )
- ↑ Battle songs in the city of culture , in: Saale-Zeitung July 7, 2017
- ↑ The new one comes from Vienna in: Saale-Zeitung , January 26, 2018
- ^ Festive concert for the 175th birthday , in: Saale-Zeitung of December 21, 2012
- ↑ 175 years - and still in good shape , in: Main-Post from December 20, 2012
- ^ The spa orchestra becomes the Philharmonie , in: Saale-Zeitung , September 14, 2018
- ↑ Musical diversity in the Bavarian State Bath
- ↑ Biography of Roman Riedel with photo ( PDF file )
- ↑ Ursula Lippold: The countdown for the concert is on , in Main-Post from March 18, 2011
- ↑ Christian Dijkstal: He plays in the YouTube Symphony Orchestra , in: Saale-Zeitung from January 12, 2011
- ↑ Angelika Luga-Braun: Funding association for the spa orchestra is founded , in: Saale-Zeitung from September 5, 2012.