Symphony Orchestra Aachen

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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

Discography (selection)

Marcus R. Bosch with the Aachen Symphony Orchestra

literature

  • Alfons Fritz : Theater and music in Aachen since the beginning of Prussian rule
  • 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

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alfred Beaujean: The "afternoon music" for bathers as a compulsory exercise. In: Aachener Nachrichten . June 6, 2003, accessed January 22, 2016 .
  2. ^ 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 ).
  3. ↑ »accelerando« What does that actually mean? accelerando - Friends of the Sinfonieorchester Aachen eV, accessed on January 22, 2016 .