Wiener Singakademie
Encyclopedia
As the first mixed choir in Vienna, the Wiener Singakademie was founded in 1858 with the idea to establish a "Singübungsanstalt" (an institution for the training of voices). From the beginning, its repertory has been shaped by two major interests: the fostering of the works of the traditional masters, and the inclusion of contemporary works. The Wiener Singakademie soon established itself as a fixed part of Vienna's concert scene. In 1862, the young Johannes Brahms
was invited to come to Vienna
as the choir’s director. Vienna was the city that he would come to regard as the center of his life.
With the passing years, the circle of conductors with whom the choir primarily worked grew steadily, and included, most notably, Gustav Mahler
, Richard Strauss
and Bruno Walter
(the latter becoming the choir’s director for a number of years). Furthermore, many noted composers mounted the conductor's podium to give the premiere performances of their works together with the Wiener Singakademie to the Viennese public. In this way, Edvard Grieg
, Anton Rubinstein
and Pietro Mascagni
contributed to Vienna's musical history during the first decades of the Wiener Singakademie’s existence.
After 55 years as an independent choir, the Wiener Singakademie finally found its long-sought-for home in 1913 with the opening of the Wiener Konzerthaus. As part of the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft, the choir established itself as an important partner of the Konzerthaus, whose busy schedule had to be curtailed only during the two world wars. Just like the city of Vienna itself, the choir, too, returned to life in 1945. This rose in the '50s and '60s, under the leadership of Hans Gillesberger, to an artistic highpoint that left nothing more to be desired with respect to concert tours, the variety and quality of performances, and to working with great conductors. Wilhelm Furtwängler
and Paul Hindemith
, as well as Karl Böhm
and Hans Svarowsky, along with the young Lorin Maazel
were jointly responsible for this development in these early days.
When, in 1983, Agnes Grossmann assumed the post of artistic director, it was the first time that a woman headed the Wiener Singakademie. Through Grossmann the academic orientation of the institution was revived. Her concept, which placed special emphasis on voice and general musical training for the choir members, is still alive today.
During the tenure of Alexander Pereira as Secretary General of the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft, from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, and later under the artistic direction of his successor, Herbert Böck, the choir’s standing within the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft was further enhanced. Consequently, the choir can look back with pride on its work together with great artists like Georges Prêtre
, Yehudi Menuhin
, Claudio Abbado
, Sir Roger Norrington, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Simon Rattle and Kent Nagano
.
Since the beginning of the 1998/1999 season, Heinz Ferlesch has had the leadership of the choir, He has initiated a program to support and advance young artists that not only features the routine training of singers, but that also integrates aspiring young soloists and ensembles in concert performances. Through innovation and a greater diversity in the choice of program material, the repertory of the choir has been extended to encompass a broad spectrum of musical history from performances of Bach's "Johannespassion" under Ton Koopman
to Britten's "War Requiem" under Simone Young
, and from Verdi's "Messa da Requiem" under Franz Welser-Möst
to Scelsi's "Konx-Om-Pax" under Ingo Metzmacher
. Increasingly often, Heinz Ferlesch himself stands on the conductor’s podium to lead "his" choir through a-cappella literature and baroque works for choir and orchestra. A recent highlight in this context was the fall 2006 performance of Händel's" Judas Maccabaeus”, the recording of which, produced in cooperation with the ORF (the Austrian Broadcasting Company) resulted in an internationally acclaimed CD. Currently, the Wiener Singakademie includes about 100 male and female singers.
Going beyond the repertory for large choir and orchestra, the Wiener Singakademie opened a new chapter with its founding in 2006 of the Wiener Singakademie Kammerchor (chamber choir). The ensemble, made up of members of the Wiener Singakademie, devotes itself primarily to a-cappella music. In addition to this, its scope extends to vocal works that require a smaller ensemble. The Wiener Singakademie Kammerchor scored its first successes in July 2007, when it was awarded a second and a fourth place prize at the international choir competition at Spittal/Drau. For the jubilee season of 2008 Christian Mühlbacher has been commissioned to compose a piece for the Ensemble.
In 2008, the Wiener Singakademie celebrates its 150th anniversary. In honor of this occasion, the Wiener Konzerthaus is issuing a special jubilee subscription that will extend beyond the current season. Johann Sebastian Bach's "Matthäuspassion" will be performed at the jubilee concert to be held on 8 March 2008 in the Großer Saal of the Konzerthaus. On the same day, a multimedia publication recounting the past and the present of the choir is to be presented. Another special project for 2008 is a soccer match against the Wiener Singverein
, which is also celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2008.
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
was invited to come to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
as the choir’s director. Vienna was the city that he would come to regard as the center of his life.
With the passing years, the circle of conductors with whom the choir primarily worked grew steadily, and included, most notably, Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
, Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
and Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor. He is considered one of the best known conductors of the 20th century. Walter was born in Berlin, but is known to have lived in several countries between 1933 and 1939, before finally settling in the United States in 1939...
(the latter becoming the choir’s director for a number of years). Furthermore, many noted composers mounted the conductor's podium to give the premiere performances of their works together with the Wiener Singakademie to the Viennese public. In this way, Edvard Grieg
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...
, Anton Rubinstein
Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...
and Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...
contributed to Vienna's musical history during the first decades of the Wiener Singakademie’s existence.
After 55 years as an independent choir, the Wiener Singakademie finally found its long-sought-for home in 1913 with the opening of the Wiener Konzerthaus. As part of the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft, the choir established itself as an important partner of the Konzerthaus, whose busy schedule had to be curtailed only during the two world wars. Just like the city of Vienna itself, the choir, too, returned to life in 1945. This rose in the '50s and '60s, under the leadership of Hans Gillesberger, to an artistic highpoint that left nothing more to be desired with respect to concert tours, the variety and quality of performances, and to working with great conductors. Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. By the 1930s he had built a reputation as one of the leading conductors in Europe, and he was the leading conductor who remained...
and Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
, as well as Karl Böhm
Karl Böhm
Karl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.- Education :...
and Hans Svarowsky, along with the young Lorin Maazel
Lorin Maazel
Lorin Varencove Maazel is an American conductor, violinist and composer.- Early life :Maazel was born to Jewish-American parents in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France and brought up in the United States, primarily at his parents' home in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood. His father, Lincoln Maazel , was...
were jointly responsible for this development in these early days.
When, in 1983, Agnes Grossmann assumed the post of artistic director, it was the first time that a woman headed the Wiener Singakademie. Through Grossmann the academic orientation of the institution was revived. Her concept, which placed special emphasis on voice and general musical training for the choir members, is still alive today.
During the tenure of Alexander Pereira as Secretary General of the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft, from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, and later under the artistic direction of his successor, Herbert Böck, the choir’s standing within the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft was further enhanced. Consequently, the choir can look back with pride on its work together with great artists like Georges Prêtre
Georges Prêtre
- Biography :He was born in Waziers , and attended the Douai Conservatory and then studied harmony under Maurice Duruflé and conducting under André Cluytens among others at the Conservatoire de Paris. Amongst his early musical interests were jazz and trumpet. After graduating, he conducted in a...
, Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...
, Claudio Abbado
Claudio Abbado
Claudio Abbado, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , is an Italian conductor. He has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera,...
, Sir Roger Norrington, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Simon Rattle and Kent Nagano
Kent Nagano
__FORCETOC__Kent George Nagano is an American conductor and opera administrator. He is currently the music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Bavarian State Opera.-Biography:...
.
Since the beginning of the 1998/1999 season, Heinz Ferlesch has had the leadership of the choir, He has initiated a program to support and advance young artists that not only features the routine training of singers, but that also integrates aspiring young soloists and ensembles in concert performances. Through innovation and a greater diversity in the choice of program material, the repertory of the choir has been extended to encompass a broad spectrum of musical history from performances of Bach's "Johannespassion" under Ton Koopman
Ton Koopman
Ton Koopman is a conductor, organist and harpsichordist.Koopman had a "classical education" and then studied the organ , harpsichord and musicology in Amsterdam...
to Britten's "War Requiem" under Simone Young
Simone Young
Simone Margaret Young AM is an Australian conductor. She is music director of the Hamburg Philharmonic and general manager of the Hamburg State Opera...
, and from Verdi's "Messa da Requiem" under Franz Welser-Möst
Franz Welser-Möst
Franz Welser-Möst is an Austrian conductor who is currently the music director for the Cleveland Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera.- Biography :...
to Scelsi's "Konx-Om-Pax" under Ingo Metzmacher
Ingo Metzmacher
Ingo Metzmacher is a German conductor. He is the son of the cellist Rudolf Metzmacher. His musical education in piano, music theory and conducting was in Hanover, Salzburg and Cologne...
. Increasingly often, Heinz Ferlesch himself stands on the conductor’s podium to lead "his" choir through a-cappella literature and baroque works for choir and orchestra. A recent highlight in this context was the fall 2006 performance of Händel's" Judas Maccabaeus”, the recording of which, produced in cooperation with the ORF (the Austrian Broadcasting Company) resulted in an internationally acclaimed CD. Currently, the Wiener Singakademie includes about 100 male and female singers.
Going beyond the repertory for large choir and orchestra, the Wiener Singakademie opened a new chapter with its founding in 2006 of the Wiener Singakademie Kammerchor (chamber choir). The ensemble, made up of members of the Wiener Singakademie, devotes itself primarily to a-cappella music. In addition to this, its scope extends to vocal works that require a smaller ensemble. The Wiener Singakademie Kammerchor scored its first successes in July 2007, when it was awarded a second and a fourth place prize at the international choir competition at Spittal/Drau. For the jubilee season of 2008 Christian Mühlbacher has been commissioned to compose a piece for the Ensemble.
In 2008, the Wiener Singakademie celebrates its 150th anniversary. In honor of this occasion, the Wiener Konzerthaus is issuing a special jubilee subscription that will extend beyond the current season. Johann Sebastian Bach's "Matthäuspassion" will be performed at the jubilee concert to be held on 8 March 2008 in the Großer Saal of the Konzerthaus. On the same day, a multimedia publication recounting the past and the present of the choir is to be presented. Another special project for 2008 is a soccer match against the Wiener Singverein
Wiener Singverein
The Vienna Singverein is the concert choir of the Vienna Musikverein with around 230 members. It is regularly requested by top orchestras and conductors for large and varied projects.- History :...
, which is also celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2008.