Paulus Choir Stuttgart
| Paulus Choir Stuttgart | |
|---|---|
| Seat: | Stuttgart / Germany |
| Carrier: | Evangelical church community Stuttgart-West |
| Founding: | 1898 |
| Genus: | church choir |
| Head : | Sabine Steinmetz |
| Voices : | SSAATTBB |
| Website : | www.pauluschor.de |
The Paulus Choir Stuttgart is the church choir of the Protestant Pauluskirche in Stuttgart- West. The director is Sabine Steinmetz .
history
A church choir in the Paulusgemeinde is mentioned for the first time at the dedication service of the Pauluskirche in the presence of the Württemberg royal family on April 17, 1898. The director at that time, Martin Mezger, was cantor (and organist) at the Pauluskirche until 1936.
After Mezger's death, the choir was re-established because the greater part of the choir had requested a German Christian successor, but the parish council decided in favor of Karl Isenberg as organist and August Langenbeck as cantor. The new choir met for the first time in March 1937, but Langenbeck was drafted into the Wehrmacht in October 1940, the Pauluskirche, the parish and the parish hall were destroyed in air raids, so that rehearsals were no longer possible. Helga Böhmer, organist and cantor of the Paul-Gerhard-Kirche, took over the leadership of the church choir from autumn 1944 to summer 1945, from 1946 the choir was directed by Hanna Riecker.
In April 1948, Langenbeck, who had returned from French captivity, took over the church choir again. From September 1949 the choir had a rehearsal room with the emergency church on Leipziger Platz. In 1958 Langenbeck, who was also head of the church music department at the SDR and founder of the Stuttgart cantata choir , was appointed cantor at the collegiate church in Stuttgart and thus had to give up the church choir of the Pauluskirche.
Langenbeck's successor was the department head for modern music at the SDR and head of the Stuttgart Schola Cantorum , Clytus Gottwald , who among other things with his informal church services , in which he “for the first time the combination of new music (new organ and choral music as well as music for linguistic sounds and electronic music) with a new form of worship ”, even made it look great nationwide. It was precisely these new forms of worship that led to conflict with the parish council and the upper church council, so that Gottwald resigned from his position as cantor in October 1970.
Gottwald succeeded Dieter Kurz , who, however, was appointed artistic director of the Laubacher Kantorei near Frankfurt as early as 1972 . Joachim Eichhorn , organist at the Gedächtnis- und Waldkirche, also took on the position of cantor at the Pauluskirche in addition to his duties there.
In 1974 the position of cantor and organist at the Pauluskirche were reassigned, Dieter Kurz, who had returned from Frankfurt, took over both tasks and the church choir became the Pauluschor . When Dieter Kurz became professor of choral conducting at the Stuttgart University of Music in 1980 , he remained cantor and director of the Paulus Choir, but gave up his position as organist again.
In 2016, the previously separate positions as choir director and organist at the Pauluskirche as well as the position of director of the Paulus Orchestra were reassigned. Until then, the orchestra was directed by Dieter Kurz's wife, Veronika Stoertzenbach . Sabine Steinmetz, most recently cantor at the Christ Church in Stuttgart-Korntal, took over these tasks in July 2016. She led the rehearsals with the Paulus Choir from April 2016, and in 2018 she handed over the leadership of the Paulus Orchestra to Frank Kleinheins.
The cantors were:
- 1898–1936 Martin Mezger
- 1937–1958 August Langenbeck
- 1958–1970 Clytus Gottwald
- 1970–1972 Dieter Kurz
- 1972–1974 Joachim Eichhorn
- 1974–2016 Dieter Kurz
- since 2016 Sabine Steinmetz
Choir work
Around 80 active singers, not only from the community itself, but from a larger catchment area beyond Stuttgart, make the choir an ambitious amateur ensemble.
The focus of the choir's work is on the musical design of the services - here mainly with a cappella works from different epochs - several times a year also the development of larger works, often in collaboration with the Paulus Orchestra, but partly under the direction of Dieter Kurz also with the choir and orchestra of the University of Stuttgart .
The extensive repertoire of the choir includes works and a. by Schütz , Handel , Bach , Haydn , Mendelssohn Bartholdy , Brahms , Fauré , Dvořák , Berlioz and Verdi also more modern works, e.g. B. by Zimmermann , Bernstein and Rutter .
In 1991 the choir took part in the European Church Music Festival in Schwäbisch Gmünd and made a recording of the winner of the composition competition for the SDR.
Web links
- Website of the Paulus Choir
- Website of the Paulus Orchestra Stuttgart
- Website of the Evangelical Church Community Stuttgart-West
Individual evidence
- ↑ "The church was completely occupied when at 10 o'clock the Royal Majesties and their Royal Highness the Princess Pauline drove up to the staircase. (...) As soon as the King and Queen, the clergy and other invited guests had entered, they were still singing without organ accompaniment - the congregation plays the chorale: "Now everyone thanks God", and the church choir the 110th psalm (motet by C. Stein). " Theodor Traub: Our Pauluskirche, Stuttgart 1906, p. 16f.
- ↑ 1892-1992. 100 Years Evangelical Paulus Congregation Stuttgart-West, Stuttgart 1992, p. 83.
- ↑ to: Jörg Steinmayer: The Church Musicians of the Paulus Congregation. In: 1892-1992. 100 Years of the Evangelical Paulus Congregation Stuttgart-West, Stuttgart 1992, pp. 77–95.
- ↑ 1892-1992. 100 Years Evangelical Paulus Congregation Stuttgart-West, Stuttgart 1992, p. 95.
- ↑ www.pauluschor.de , as of February 14, 2013