Swiss song festival

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Poster for the Federal Song Festival 1928 in Lausanne

As the Swiss Singing Festival (formerly the Swiss Singing Festival ) ( French Fête suisse de chant , Italian Festa svizzera del canto , Romansh Festa federala da chant ), it is organized every 8 to 9 years by the Swiss Choir Association (SCV) , the umbrella organization of the cantonal and regional choral societies , organized federal festival called.

history

prehistory

The four-part male choir , cultivated by associations, arose as a result of the transformation of intellectual life through the Enlightenment , the discovery of folk and federal values ​​in the 19th century. Since Switzerland hardly knew any court life and neither court orchestras nor operas and soloists, choral singing spread to all strata of the people here earlier than elsewhere.

The Swiss “singer's father” Hans Georg Nägeli (1773–1836) removed the people's choral singing from church services and wanted to educate the people musically and morally through choral singing , in the spirit of Pestalozzi . In 1810 he founded the world's first male choir in Zurich.

1840s

Federal Song Festival Olten 1860

In 1835, Josef Wieland, city councilor and doctor in Rheinfelden, suggested the establishment of a federal singing association. The canton capital Aarau was entrusted with the organization of the annual festival of the Aarau Association in 1842. The president of the association had the idea of ​​inviting the male choirs of the other cantons to Aarau. On June 5, 1842, 1000 singers followed this invitation to the singing festival in Aarau. The evening before, members of the cantons of Aargau, Baselland, Basel-Stadt, Bern, Lucerne, Solothurn and Zurich decided to found a national singers' association, the Federal Singers' Association, and to hold the first Federal Singers' Festival in Zurich in 1843 .

To 1900

The federal singing festivals organized by the new nationwide association were, in addition to the singing competition, a platform for patriotic speeches, which were intended to strengthen togetherness in the new federal state of 1848 and the anchoring of direct democracy among the people. National songs , such as the one by Gottfried Keller with the title Oh my fatherland , were composed especially for these choir festivals . The federal song festivals were the defining major musical events of the 19th century.

20th century

Meiringen 2015: Choir competition Michaelskirche
Meiringen 2015: Spontaneous singer island

In 1977 the Swiss Choir Association came into being through the merger of the Federal Singers' Association , the Association of Swiss Women's and Daughter Choirs and the Swiss Association of Mixed Choirs . Today it comprises around 2,000 choirs of all genres with around 60,000 active members.

415 choirs with 12,000 singers took part in the 2015 Swiss Song Festival in Meiringen. Around 30,000 visitors followed the choir competition and the supporting events.

Swiss song festivals, from 1982 Swiss song festivals

literature

  • Central-Comité: Description of the first federal singing festival in Zurich on June 25 and 26, 1843 . In addition to an introduction about the foundation, as well as the purpose of this national festival, and the collection of the speeches and toasts that were given, etc. JJ Leuthy's Verlagsbureau, Zurich 1842.
  • The Federal Singers' Association 1842–1942. History of the association and its singing festivals , written as a memorandum for the centenary on behalf of the central board and dedicated to the singers. Orell Füssli Publishing House, Zurich 1942.
  • 26th Federal Singers' Festival, 100 years of the Swiss Federal State , June 18-29, 1948 in Bern, 1948.
  • Otto Uhlmann: General report on the Federal Singers 'Association in the period 1948–1953 and on the 27th Federal Singers' Festival in St. Gallen in 1954. Société fédérale des chanteurs (Suisse); 1954.

Web links

Commons : Swiss Song Festival  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chorus Bulletin 1/2017. Swiss Choir Association SCV, January 30, 2017, accessed on February 7, 2017 .