Singakademie Halle

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Singakademie Halle
Seat: Halle (Saale) , Germany
Founding: August 3, 1814
Genus: mixed choir
Founder: Johann Friedrich Naue
Head : Nikolaus Müller
Voices : about 70 ( SATB )
Website : www.singakademie-halle.de

The Singing Academy Hall is after the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin one of the oldest singing academies in Germany, founded in 1814 by Johann Friedrich Naue , the next Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy , among other student Carl Friedrich Zelter was. It has been named after its most important director ( Robert Franz Singing Academy) since 1907 , and in 1953 it was affiliated with the Staatskapelle Halle . The institution consists of a semi-professional amateur choir with currently 70 active singers. Nikolaus Müller has been the artistic director since 2014.

history

The Singakademie under its founder JF Naue

In 1808 the Hallische Patriotisches Wochenblatt first expressed the wish for such an institution, and in 1814 the same newspaper for the first time talked about a singing academy, which was held for the academic celebration in Halle Cathedral on the birthday of King Friedrich Wilhelm III. (August 3rd) had sung. In the remark that the " highly esteemed Singing Academy, which has been formed for some time under the direction of Prof. Maaß and Mr. Naue ... is compositions by the great Handel, who was once Britain's pride and, as a dull Halle native, is our pride " presented, expresses the growing identification of the people of Halle with Georg Friedrich Handel , their greatest son in the city, which is also based on the longing for a growing national feeling - something that could be observed throughout Germany around the time of the wars of liberation .

When Johann Friedrich Naue received composition lessons from Carl Friedrich Zelter in Berlin , he had got to know the world's first singing academy, which was founded by Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch in 1791 and passed on to his pupil Carl Friedrich Zelter in 1800. Presumably he then took the initiative, together with his former academic teacher Johann Gebhard Maaß , to set up such an institution in Halle, after some had just been established in Leipzig and Dresden. Naue, appointed in 1817 as university music director at the Friedrichs University, which was merged with the Wittenberg University founded in 1502, headed the Singakademie Halle himself until 1833. The highlight of his tenure for the Singakademie was the first music festival of the Thuringian-Saxon Music Association in 1829, which he organized Halle, where she presented herself with 371 singers and Georg Friedrich Handel's oratorio Samson . The institution then fell into a serious crisis that was only overcome when his successor Simon Georg Schmidt revitalized the academy as part of the Halle Music Association .

Robert Franz

The heyday under Robert Franz

In 1841 Schmidt went to Bremen. As a farewell, on the 300th anniversary of the introduction of the Reformation on November 1, 1841 in St. Moritz, Halle, with the participation of 300 singers, he conducted Handel's Messiah HWV 56 . After a new crisis in the years 1847 to 1849, which was based on the separation of the Singakademie from the Hallescher Musikverein, the institution experienced a heyday under the composer , organist and choir director Robert Franz , which made it known throughout Germany.

Born in Halle, he took over the position of conductor in 1842 as a worthy successor to Johann Friedrich Naue and brought new members with him, singers from a private choir led by him. Max Erlanger, who had the academy a few months before him, was not up to the task. Initially, members and music lovers also viewed Robert Franz skeptically, because the new director was not a gifted conductor of his time. But it turned out that his strength was to motivate the contributors by understanding how to understand the essence of each work. In 1865 the Singakademie Halle had 400 members, 100 of whom sang actively in the choir. During these years Franz studied numerous works that have since become standard musical literature: Mozart's Requiem at the annual soirées on Sunday of the Dead (alternating with Cherubini's Requiem ), oratorios by Handel such as Messiah HWV 56 , Israel in Egypt HWV 54 , Judas Maccabäus HWV 63 and cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach . But works by contemporaries at the time were also performed, such as Robert Schumann's Das Paradies und die Peri op. 50, who lived in Leipzig, or Romberg's Glocke . The Singakademie Halle still studied Handel's works until the mid-1870s. After that, she was largely limited to repetitions.

The rehearsals usually took place in the hall of the Hotel and Gasthof Zum Kronprinzen on Kleine Klausstrasse. 16 on the market square, where regular theater and concert events took place, u. a. In 1829 the music days with Carl Friedrich Zelter and in 1835 a concert with Clara Wieck (today: Ärztehaus Mitte, Halle).

The academy as the bearer of the revival of edited works by Bach and Handel

“ I vehemently reject performances based on sheet music that only reproduce the 'Urtext' without any additions, because, in my opinion, their true-to-note reproduction led to bloodless interpretations that only reproduce a distortion of the actual music. "(Robert Franz)

Especially for the concerts with the Singakademie, Robert Franz - like Mozart in 1788/89 before him - arranged the works of Bach and Handel in particular and had them printed so that they were distributed far beyond the Singakademie circle. Important Bach researchers such as Philipp Spitta and the Hamburg-based Handel researcher Friedrich Chrysander strongly criticized Robert Franz's arrangements at the time: The instruments that were no longer in use or perceived as no longer suitable were replaced by modern ones, enriched by further wind instruments, by scale instruments of the 19th century to achieve a "melodious sound". Franz suspended many figured basses for various wind instruments because an organ did not offer enough opportunities for expression according to his ideas. In 1871 Robert Franz published an “Open letter to Eduard Hanslick about arrangements of older music works, namely Bach and Handelian vocal music”, in which he outlined his views and motivations. In its own way, the Singakademie Halle became for 30 years an important supporter of the revival movement of Bach and Handel's works, which began at the beginning of the 19th century with Carl Friedrich Zelter and in particular the musical work of his most important student Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

The era after Robert Franz

Robert Franz resigned the musical direction of the Singakademie in 1867. It was so strongly influenced by him, especially in the works of Bach and Handel, that in the era after him there were tensions within the academy and ultimately a split.

Their new head Felix Voretzsch initially continued to use Franz's arrangements, but then gradually abandoned them. As a result, the executive committee of the Singakademie resigned its conductors in 1880, whereupon most of the members resigned and a year later founded a second, New Singakademie with their ex-conductor , which was less connected to Robert Franz, the old director and his customs. Voretzsch headed the Neue Singakademie until 1900. Willy Wurfschmidt was his successor . The two singing academies existed side by side until the 1920s, with the one associated with Robert Franz (originally founded by Naue) consciously named the Robert Franz Singing Academy from 1907 and the provocative Hallische Singakademie , founded by Voretzsch in 1908 . Both regularly offered high-quality concerts, oratorios by George Frideric Handel, sometimes even one day after the other performed a great work.

After the split between 1880 and 1911, the Robert Franz Singing Academy was under the direction of a Liszt student who was very successful as an organ and piano virtuoso in Halle . The choice fell on him, the university music director Otto Reubke , because, in addition to his function as a music teacher and lecturer, he had been leading a choral society with over 100 members for a long time and had experience of performing works by Handel and Bach in Franz's arrangement. More than before, the work of the Singakademie under Reubke was now directed towards public performances, the quality of which was to be raised by involving professional soloists. His successor was the Royal Music Director and University Music Director Alfred Rahlwes , who headed the Robert Franz Singing Academy until 1946 and set up several Handel works for it.

Since then, the Singakademie has had an eventful development. a. in 1953, when she was affiliated with the State Symphony Orchestra in Halle , which has since obliged her to perform a certain number of concerts with the orchestra each year, in Halle and in Central Germany. Guest performances took the academy's singers to Veszprém in 1970 , to Paris in 1975 , to Hanover and Hildesheim in 1991 , to Saint Petersburg in 1992 with the Handel oratorio L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (Franz'sche arrangement) , and in 1995 to Braunschweig and Burg Gnandstein and 2005 to Rome . At the 4th International Choir Competition in Budapest in 1993 the Singakademie Halle received a silver diploma. She received the Zelter badge in 1999. The choir has been a member of the Association of German Concert Choirs (VdKC) since 1990.

georg Friedrich Handel

Significance of the Singakademie for the European Handel care

As far as can be judged today, his music did not play a significant role in the birth town of George Frideric Handel until the beginning of the 19th century, although after a first Handel concert outside of England in Berlin ( Alexander's Feast ) in 1766, also in cities such as Florence and Hamburg , Weimar, Leipzig and Braunschweig occasional performances followed. With the Messiah (Mozart's version) KV572, Daniel Gottlob Türk performed a Handel work for the first time in Halle in 1803 at a specially arranged Handel evening.

The merit of the Singakademie Halle for the European care of Handel is that from 1814 in the birth town of George Frideric Handel, an awareness of the care of his works was established. Already during its founding years under Johann Friedrich Naue, unlike in other associations, she appeared with several Handelian oratorios such as 1820 with Saul and Solomon , 1836 under Schmidt with Messiah , Judas Maccabäus and again Saul and in 1838 with the Dettinger Te Deum , Alexander's Feast and Israel in Egypt .

The most important director of the Singakademie, Robert Franz , arranged numerous adaptations of Handel's works especially for the academy and published them with it beyond the city limits. For this reason, the members of the academy have always considered themselves to be important carriers of Handel's care (in addition to the care of Bach's and Franz's works).

The first highlight of the European Handel care is undoubtedly the lavish celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the composer's death in 1859, in which the Singakademie Halle was significantly involved. Years earlier, Georg Gottfried Gervinus launched an appeal to all music associations in German-speaking countries to hold performances in favor of a memorial worthy of the composer, which is to be placed in Handel's birthplace on the market square opposite the Marktkirche Our Lady , in which he will play the organ with Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow learned. In fact, quite a few donations were received not only from numerous cities in Germany, but also from England. The Singakademie Halle played an important role in this project, which surprisingly turned out to be a German-English one, as it performed several impressive oratorios under Robert Franz for the benefit of the Monument Fund in the years after Gervinus was called . In March 1856 in the hall of the Francke Foundations, Handel's Samson and 1857 the Messiah (Mozart-Franz'sche version) , which was repeated a year later. In the same year the Singakademie also performed Israel in Egypt and again Samson . Thanks to their commitment and other associations, Hermann Heidel and numerous dignitaries and important artists, including Franz Liszt , were able to attend the ceremonial inauguration of the Handel monument in Halle on July 1, 1859 , whereupon the Singing Academy then thanked Our Lady in the Marktkirche with an extraordinary performance of the Handel oratorio Samson , in which renowned soloists such as Johanna Jachmann-Wagner ( Richard Wagner's niece ) sang . Handel's works were performed almost every year in Halle, the composer's birthplace.

At the celebrations for the 200th birthday of Georg Friedrich Handel, the ex-boss of the Singakademie Halle, Robert Franz, was appointed honorary president of the preparatory committee. On the eve of Handel's birthday (February 23, 1885), the Neue Singakademie , which was briefly founded under Voretzsch, performed Handel's Hercules in the hall of the Schützenhaus . The older Singakademie under Otto Reubke once again performed the Messiah (Mozart-Franz version) on the anniversary evening .

Since the founding of the annual Handel Festival in 1952, the Singakademie, together with the Halle State Symphony Orchestra, has traditionally organized the final concert of the Festival in the Galgenberg Gorge and has played a key role in the development and consolidation of a tradition of this festival, which has since become regular alongside those in Göttingen and Karlsruhe with the most renowned Handel experts from all over the world, such as in 1997 with Emma Kirkby , 1999 with Trevor Pinnock and in 2000 with John Eliot Gardiner .

The task of the Robert-Franz-Singakademie today in the increasingly globalized world consists increasingly in the intellectual overcoming of national borders with regard to the biographical peculiarities of its composer Handel, who has shaped through the centuries, in order to join other important choir associations in a music city like Halle ad Saale to remain sustainable.

Head of the Singakademie Halle

literature

  • Konstanze Musketa : Music history of the city of Halle: Guide through the exhibition of the Handel House . 1st edition. Handel House, Halle an der Saale 1998, ISBN 3-910019-13-7 , p. 53 f .
  • Hermann Abert: History of the Robert Franz Singing Academy in Halle as 1833–1908. In addition to an overview of the history of the oldest concert industry in Halle, Max Niemeyer Verlag, Halle (Saale), 1908