Symphony Orchestra Aachen
The Aachen Symphony Orchestra is the concert and opera orchestra of the Aachen Theater . It consists of around 70 musicians and performs around 140 performances annually. The regular symphony concerts take place in the Eurogress Aachen .
history
The Aachen Symphony Orchestra, formerly the Aachen City Orchestra, is one of the oldest urban orchestras in Germany. It initially consisted of military musicians from the city guard, who were supported by part-time string players. It was not until 1771 that the musicians applied for so-called concerts to be set up and carried out to amuse the respectable people , who had not previously existed in this form in Aachen. In 1782 they were finally given the new redoubt built by Jakob Couven as a concert hall in the Komphausbadstrasse in Aachen. In 1787 Georg Zethner became the first conductor of the symphony orchestra. For the performance of Haydn's oratorio The Creation in 1803, around half of the total of 48 orchestra members were invited from abroad to reinforce them. On the occasion of the inauguration of the new city theater on March 28, 1825 as part of the eighth Niederrheinische Musikfest , which took place for the first time in Aachen , the orchestra, including the choir, was increased to 422 members in order to be able to perform Beethoven's 9th Symphony under the direction of Ferdinand Ries Back then some difficult passages were discreetly left out. From then on, the orchestra regularly took part in this music festival, which lasted until 1958 and took place alternately in the cities of Elberfeld , Düsseldorf , Cologne and Aachen. It was occasionally led by foreign guest conductors such as Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy , Julius Rietz , Max Bruch , Carl Reinecke , Richard Strauss , Hans Pfitzner , Clemens Krauss or Felix Weingartner . Guest interpreters such as the 12-year-old César Franck (1835), Johann Strauss, Vater (1836) or Jacques Offenbach (1843) also appeared with the orchestra more and more often . In 1841 the symphony orchestra's first major international tour to France took place.
After the founding of the Aachener Instrumentalverein in 1844, which was supposed to strengthen the city orchestra, the city council decided that the orchestra, which was still made up of recreational musicians, was converted into a permanent establishment in 1852, which now employed professional musicians on a salaried basis. This made the Aachen Symphony Orchestra the first of its kind in the Rhineland . The musicians temporarily found a permanent home in the Bernarts Theater in Aachen between 1862 and 1864 before they could permanently establish themselves in the theater building. From then on, the orchestra also offered regular winter subscriptions, musical project weeks and, from 1910, the well-known spa concerts. Depending on the program, they were repeatedly accompanied by various choral societies and choirs that had emerged in large numbers during those years. To support the orchestra and as a link to the public, the Association of Friends of Theater and Music Aachen was founded in 1924 . The sponsoring association has meanwhile renamed itself to accelerando - Friends of the Aachen Symphony Orchestra .
During the Second World War, concerts were maintained as far as possible. Some of the performances took place in the auditorium or the Talbothalle of RWTH Aachen University and in Aachen Cathedral . After the war, the orchestra began from 1945, initially every 14 days, with performances from the cathedral music series. In 1946 it appeared at the first music festival in Steinfeld Monastery . After the city theater reopened in 1951, the symphony orchestra used it as a concert space. In the same year it also resumed the spa concerts that had been interrupted during the war and, from 1958, took over the musical arrangement of the Aachen sanctuary tour . In addition, there were numerous guest appearances at home and abroad as well as regular joint events with the Aachen Cathedral Choir , the Aachen Symphony Choir , the Aachen Bach Society , the Aachen Young Choir and the Cappella Aquensis .
Some conductors who became very well known later, such as Fritz Busch , Herbert von Karajan and Wolfgang Sawallisch , began their careers in Aachen.
Kapellmeister and music directors
- 1787–1794 Georg Zethner (municipal music director)
- 1804–1823 Karl Matthias Engels
- 1823–1825 Paul Kreutzer (new name: Municipal Music Director)
- 1825–1827 Justus Amadeus Lecerf
- 1828–1832 Wilhelm Telle
- 1834–1835 Ferdinand Ries
- 1835–1840 Anton Felix Schindler (at the same time also Stiftskapellmeister at Aachen Cathedral)
- 1841–1842 Wenzel Heinrich Veit
- 1842–1857 Karl von Turanyi
- 1858–1865 Franz Wüllner
- 1865–1883 Ferdinand Breunung
- 1884–1887 Julius Kniese
- 1887–1912 Eberhard Schwickerath (1893–1898 Leo Blech , Kapellmeister)
- 1912–1919 Fritz Busch
- 1920–1935 Peter Raabe (new designation: General Music Director) (1927–1932 Paul Pella musical chief)
- 1935–1942 Herbert von Karajan
- 1942–1944 Paul van Kempen
- 1945–1946 Theodor Bernhard Rehmann (acting, full-time 1924–1963 cathedral music director)
- 1946–1953 Felix Raabe (son of Peter Raabe)
- 1953–1958 Wolfgang Sawallisch
- 1958–1962 Hans Walter Kämpfel
- 1962–1975 Wolfgang Trommer
- 1974-1983 Gabriel Chmura
- 1983–1984 Jean-François Monnard (acting music director)
- 1984–1990 Yoram David
- 1990-1992 Bruce Ferden
- 1992–1993 Stefan Lano (acting music director)
- 1993-1996 Yukio Kitahara
- 1996–1997 Elio Boncompagni (acting music director)
- 1997-2002 Elio Boncompagni
- 2002–2012 Marcus R. Bosch
- 2012–2017 Kazem Abdullah
- 2017–2018 Justus Thorau (Acting General Music Director)
- from 2018 Christopher Ward
Discography (selection)
Marcus R. Bosch with the Aachen Symphony Orchestra
- Ludwig van Beethoven : Missa solemnis , Alexandra Coku (soprano), Daniela Denschlag (alto), Andreas Scheidegger (tenor), Martin Berner (bass), vocapella choir, live recording of the cathedral concert on February 9, 2008, (Coviello Classics)
- Johannes Brahms : Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 and Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 , 2007 (Coviello Classics)
- Johannes Brahms: A German Requiem op 45, live recording of the cathedral concert on February 24, 2007 (Coviello Classics)
- Anton Bruckner : Symphony No. 8 in C minor , live recording of the concert "Bruckner in St. Nikolaus" on June 9, 2003 (Coviello Classics)
- Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in E major , live recording of the concert "Bruckner in St. Nikolaus" on May 31, 2004 (Coviello Classics)
- Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 in B flat major , live recording of the concert "Bruckner in St. Nikolaus" on May 16, 2005 (Coviello Classics)
- Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 3 in D minor , live recording of the concert "Bruckner in St. Nikolaus" on June 5, 2006 (Coviello Classics)
- Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in E flat major , live recording of the concert "Bruckner in St. Nikolaus" on June 1st, 2008 (Coviello Classics)
- Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 2 in C minor , live recording of the concert "Bruckner in St. Nikolaus" on May 24, 2010 (Coviello Classics)
- Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 6 in A major , live recording of the concert "Bruckner in St. Nikolaus" on June 1, 2009 (Coviello Classics)
- Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 in D minor , live recording of the "Bruckner Concert in St. Nikolaus" on May 28, 2007 (Coviello Classics)
- Georg Friedrich Handel : Alexander Festival Concert HWV 318 - or The Power of Music, live recording of the concert in the Alten Kurhaus on May 5, 2007
- Gustav Mahler : Symphony No. 2 in C minor "Resurrection" , Carola Höhn (soprano), Anke Vondung (mezzo-soprano), live recording of the concert on the occasion of the reopening of Eurogress Aachen on September 17, 2005
- Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy : Symphony No. 1 in C minor, op 11 and Symphony No. 5 in D major / D minor, op. 107 , live recording of the 7th and 8th symphony concert 2009 (Coviello Classics / Deutschlandradion Kultur)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart : Coronation Mass KV 317 , Exsultate, jubilate KV 165 , Vesperae solennes de Confessore KV 339 , Ave verum KV 618 , Dorothee Mields (soprano), Mélanie Forgeron (mezzo-soprano), Christoph Wittmann (tenor), Martin Berner (baritone), Vocapella choir, live recording of the cathedral concert on March 4, 2006 (Coviello Classics)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: concertos for two pianos KV 365 , piano duo Anna and Ines Walachowski (Oehms Classics)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem in D minor KV 626 , Ave verum KV 618, Judith Kuhn (soprano), Gabriele May (alto), Michael König (tenor), Claudius Muth (bass), vocapella choir, live recording of the cathedral concert on 8. March 2003 (Verlag Friedrich Bischoff GmbH)
- Marijn Simons : Secret notes op.19, a tí te toca op.23, symphony no. 1 op. 26, piano duo Anna & Ines Walachowski, live recording of the symphony concert on December 15 and 16, 2004 (NorthWest Classics)
- Mikis Theodorakis : Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra, Suite from "Les amants de Téruel", Johannes Moser (violoncello), live recording of the concert on the occasion of the presentation of the IMC-UNESCO Music Prize to Mikis Theodorakis on November 4, 2005 (Coviello Classics)
- Giuseppe Verdi : Messa da Requiem , Melba Ramos (soprano), Gabriele May (alto), Michael Ende (tenor), Martin Blasius (bass), vocapella choir, live recording of the cathedral concert on February 12, 2005, (Coviello Classics)
literature
-
Alfons Fritz : Theater and music in Aachen since the beginning of Prussian rule
- Part I in: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein (ZAGV) 24 (1902), pp. 165–231 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
- Part II in: ZAGV 26 (1904), pp. 165–277 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
- Part III in: ZAGV 39 (1917), pp. 1–154.
- Alfons Fritz: The development of the Aachen town music from the urban harmony corps to the urban orchestra (1721-1852) and its relationship to the minster music . In: ZAGV , 48/49 (1926/27), pp. 121-189.
- Keys of a city - a journey through time through the history of music in Aachen , ed. by Lutz Felbick, 292 pages, 304 illustrations, bibliography with 502 titles (= series Crous collection; 11), Aachen 2018. ISBN 978-3-9817499-4-6 . [Authors: A. Beaujean (+), L. Felbick, N. Jers, H. Leuchter and T. Mengler].
- Lutz Felbick: Aachen. In: MGG Online (subscription required).
Web links
- Homepage of the Aachen Symphony Orchestra. City Theater and Music Directorate Aachen, accessed on January 22, 2016 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Alfred Beaujean: The "afternoon music" for bathers as a compulsory exercise. In: Aachener Nachrichten . June 6, 2003, accessed January 22, 2016 .
- ^ Alfons Fritz : Music at the time of French rule . In: Aachener Geschichtsverein (Hrsg.): Journal of the Aachener Geschichtsverein . tape 23 . Verlag der Cremersche Buchhandlung (C. Cazin), Aachen 1901, p. 31–170 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
- ↑ »accelerando« What does that actually mean? accelerando - Friends of the Sinfonieorchester Aachen eV, accessed on January 22, 2016 .