Leipzig Singing Academy

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Leipzig Singing Academy
Seat: Leipzig
Carrier: independent association
Founding: 1802
Resolution: 1967
Genus: mixed choir
Founder: Jacob Bernhard Limburger , Johann Gottfried shift

The Leipzig Singakademie was from 1802 to 1967 existing mixed on club basis . It was the city's first mixed amateur choir and was one of the first in Germany. He worked several times with the Gewandhaus and was a model for founding other choir associations.

history

Some members of the Leipziger Singakademie around 1880

In the spring of 1802, on the initiative of the businessman Jacob Bernhard Limburger and the Gewandhauskapellmeister Johann Gottfriedschicht, the first Leipzig Singing Academy was founded based on the model of the Singing Academy in Berlin . Shift became her first music director. The first rehearsal took place on June 16, 1802. With a monthly contribution of one thaler , a certain civic exclusivity was preserved. The association dissolved as early as 1804. In 1805 the musician Wilhelm Friedrich Riem founded a singing academy that existed until 1806. In 1812 new foundations took place in parallel, both by shift and by Riem. The Riem'sche Vereinigung was taken over by the Gewandhauskapellmeister Johann Philipp Christian Schulz in 1814, and in 1816 by his student Friedrich Schneider . Finally, in 1818 under Schulz, the two singing academies were merged.

The first layer association had 43 members (19 female and 24 male). In 1818, 153 people belonged to the unified academy, with a slight preponderance of women. In 1866 the Leipzig Singing Academy had 84 members, only 27 of them male.

The repertoire mainly included large choral works, oratorios and cantatas. The venues were the churches in the city center and the Gewandhaus. While the concerts in the Gewandhaus were essentially independent of the choir until 1847, the choir then mainly participated in subscription concerts of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. That changed in 1861 with the founding of the Gewandhaus Choir. After that, the Singakademie worked independently again, except for a short interlude in 1879 under Carl Reinecke . Now more and more performances of contemporary compositions were added. The church music works have now been partly taken over by the competing institutions of the Riedel'schen and the Bach Society founded by Heinrich von Herzogenberg in 1874.

In 1900 the 37-year era began under the direction of Gustav Wohlgemuth with around 200 members. Before the First World War , the academy leveled off at two concerts per season, for which a kind of subscription system was set up. Between the two world wars, the Leipziger Singakademie lost its importance alongside the great competition for choirs from Leipzig, especially since members split off in 1918 with the founding of the New Leipzig Singakademie . Wohlgemuth led the Leipzig men's choir parallel to the Singakademie, which is why the two choirs cooperated several times. Wohlgemuth actively supported National Socialist propaganda events with the male choir, while only two appearances with a political background are known for the Singakademie. In addition to Haydn and Brahms, Richard Wagner was increasingly to be found in the repertoire of the Academy.

According to Gustav Wohlgemuth, the Leipziger Singakademie was only present with five appearances until 1945. After the Second World War , the tradition of two concerts per season was resumed, but soon could no longer be sustained. In 1954 the Leipziger Singakademie merged with the Leipziger Male Choir to form the Philharmonic Working Group . In the following years the importance of the Singakademie continued to decline. When Werner Säubert took over as a conductor in 1965, the choir rehearsed with only ten to fifteen singers, including only three men. There followed only appearances in a retirement home. The end of the Leipziger Singakademie was dated May 1st, 1967, when the remaining 20 women and one man joined the Gutenberg choir, which still exists today.

Music directors

Prominent members

Membership in the Singakademie was often during the Leipzig studies of the later celebrities.

literature

  • Stephan Wünsche: The Leipziger Singakademie - members, repertoire and history: Studies on choral music in Leipzig, especially at the Gewandhaus. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2014, ISBN 978-3-86583-906-0 .
  • Paul Langer: Chronicle of the Leipziger Singakademie: Ed. For the 100th anniversary. Celebration on 14-16 Feb. 1902. Klinkhardt, Leipzig 1902.
  • Horst Riedel: Stadtlexikon Leipzig from A to Z. Pro Leipzig, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-936508-03-8 , p. 552.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Stephan Wünsche: The Leipzig Singing Academy ... , p. 60.
  2. Stephan Wünsche: The Leipziger Singakademie ... , pp. 384, 387 and 402.
  3. Stephan Wünsche: The Leipziger Singakademie ... , p. 224.
  4. ^ Stephan Wünsche: The Leipzig Singing Academy ... , p. 225.
  5. Stephan Wünsche: The Leipziger Singakademie ... , p. 252.