AboutOfficial Site: http://www.wsk.at/mperial music in Austria can be traced back to the twelfth century. During the reign of the Babenberg dynasty, the court attracted a number of famous minstrels. Among the resident artists were Reinmar der Alte (“the Old”) and his pupil Walther von der Vogelweide. The Habsburgs, who succeeded the Babenbergs, also liked to surround themselves with music. Rudolf von Habsburg (1218 – 1291) had several minstrels in his employ, Albrecht I (1255 - 1308) employed two "hovegumpelman" (roughly court conductors). A document dated to 1296 mentions a "chapel" (i.e. singers and instrumental musicians). Oswald von Wolkenstein was the most famous musician at the Viennese court in the 14th century. Rudolf IV (1339 - 1365) reorganised his chapel. There was a “Kapellmeister” (master of the chapel) or “Singmeister” (master of song), and a “Praeceptor”, who had to see to the choir boys musical and general education. From 1379 onwards, there were three different court chapels in Austria: one was based in Vienna, one in Graz and Wiener Neustadt, and the third was based in Innsbruck. Albrecht II (1397 - 1439) enlisted the services of the Dutchmen Jean Brassart and Johannes de Sarto. 15th century Albrecht’s successor Friedrich III (1415-1493) had a German and a French choir, as well as drummers and pipers. It is likely that his son Maximilian (1459 – 1519) was educated with the choir boys of the imperial chapel. In 1477, Friedrich sent Maximilian to Burgundy. Maximilian married Maria of Burgundy and took over as ruler. He also inherited the local court chapel, 26 musicians who played at his coronation in 1486. In 1490, Maximilian returned to the Tyrol with the chapel from Burgundy in tow. He took over as ruler and found himself in charge of yet another band of musicians: the Innsbruck chapel, among them organist Paul Hofhaimer, who in his day was more famous than the contemporary painter Albrecht Dürer. From 1490 to 1497, Innsbruck was the chapel’s home; some of the musicians accompanied the emperor wherever he went, to meetings of kings, to tournaments and to war. In 1496, Maximilian met with his son archduke Philipp in Augsburg to discuss a military campaign against Italy. He had his musicians with him. The emperor ran out of money, and had to pawn his musicians as it were. The musicians spent two years in Augsburg, before Maximilian was able to send money to fetch them back. In 1496, Maximilian sent some members of the Innsbruck chapel to Vienna. He ordered that 12 boys, composer Heinrich Isaac and Isaac’s wife should move there. On 7 July 1498, he wrote a letter instructing court officials to employ a "singing master", two basses and six "Mutanten Knaben" (i.e. boys) in Vienna. The imperial accounts state that Maximilian "ordered the installation of a chapel in Vienna, and (he ordered) that Mr Georg N. be the singing master, Bernhart Meder and Oswalt be the two basses, and he ordered that six boys, Adam of Lüttich, Bernhart of Berg(en), Mathias of Krembs, Symon of Pruck an der Leytha, Johannes of Gmunden, and Steffan of Ybs be the descants, and (that they) sing descant in the Brabantine style." The six boys are identified by their home towns, in Austria and in the Netherlands. Singing in the "Brabantine style" was a certain technique of improvisation developed in the Netherlands; it required skill and training. Singers who had mastered the technique were held in high esteem. Historians have accepted 1498 as the founding date for the Vienna Hofmusikkapelle and the Vienna Boys’ Choir, although the choir was not founded then – strictly speaking – and although there is no foundation charter. The Slowenian Georg Slatkonia became the director of the ensemble. Flamish composer Heinrich Isaac and Swiss Ludwig Senfl were among the famous musicians in Maximilian’s time. Maximilians musicians numbered about 20, among them 12 boys. The court spent 12 to 20 guilders per boy per year; this would have fed an entire family at the time. The chapel was important to the emperor; this is reflected in Maximilian’s autobiography “Weißkunig” (White King), begun in 1516. Maximilian writes that following King David’s example, he founded a chapel, “a wonder of human voices”. The wonder continued to travel with the emperor: In 1500, they travelled to Augsburg and Bruneck, in 1501 to Linz, Nuremberg and Innsbruck, in 1512, they went to Trier. The ancestors of the Vienna Boys’ Choir were on the road almost as much as the modern choir. 16th century In 1574, documents refer to "singing boy" Jacobus Gallus (allegedly born around 1550); Gallus would have been taught by the "preceptors" Johann Pluvius (1564-1570) and Johann Lotinus (1570-1598). (You can listen to a motet by Gallus on the jukebox.) Over the course of the 16th century, the Dutch influence on music becomes evident. Maximilian I had insisted on the singers being able to sing in the style developed in the Netherlands. Most musicians at the court of Ferdinand I were Dutch, like conductors Arnold von Bruck (1527-45), Pieter Maessins (1546-62), Jean Castileti-Guyot (1563-64) and Lambert de Sayve (1612-14), further the assistant conductor Stephan Mahu, court organist Jacob Buus, and most singers. 17th and 18th centuries For a short while, the chapel had an Austrian principal: Christoph Strauß. Emperor Ferdinand II married Eleonora Gonzaga, whose family had supported Claudio Monteverdi; he acquired a taste for Italian music and sent for musicians such as Giovanni Priuli (Kapellmeister from 1619 – 1629), one of Gabrieli’s pupils. The music at the court received new input from J.J. Froberger (organist from 1637 onwards), Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (excerpts from his Requiem may be heard on the jukebox) and Georg Muffat. The contemporary music at the court is influenced by Palestrina’s music and contemporary baroque techniques. Emperors Ferdinand III, Leopold I, Joseph I and Karl VI. all loved music, and all composed their own works. The chapel excelled in sacred and in secular music. A new type of music arrived in Vienna in 1629: the opera, a powerful mixture of music and drama, which started to dominate cultural life in Vienna. The opera to end all operas was Antonio Cesti’s Pomo d’oro (The Golden Apple): composed in 1666 for the marriage of Leopold I to Margerita of Spain, it was performed in 1668. The opera consists of five acts and a prologue and has a cast of over 50. It required 23 elaborate stage designs, 39 different machines for different stage effects, and the performance took a full eight hours, spread out over two days, and the choristers of the Imperial Chapel took part in the performance. Maria Theresia Empress Maria Theresia had other thoughts about music: nice if you could have it, but it should not cost much. She felt that there were more important things in life. So she privatised her Hofmusikkapelle : she gave court organist Georg Reutter the elder a lump sum of money to pay for the music. Reutter made his son (who was at the same time director of music at St. Stephen’s cathedral) court Kapellmeister. The yonger Reutter found it difficult to pay for the musicians (in particular the castrati who had to be imported from Italy at great cost). He economised by not replacing retired musicians,and the number of musicians dwindled from 130 to 20. At the end of Reutter’s time, there was not even an organist for the chapel. There was no money to pay for boys to sing, or to pay for their education. Reutter had the obvious solution: he “lent” the boys of St. Stephen’s to the court. This was possible, since he was director of music there, and also in charge of admissions and recruitment. The most famous choristers at St. Stephen's were without doubt cheeky Joseph Haydn and his brother Michael. During the Wiener Klassik, the Austrian court employed celebrities like Christoph Willibald Gluck (father of opera as we know it) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as composers. The Hofmusikkapelle played less at secular occasions, and more in sacred contexts. By the nineteenth century they hardly played outside the church. Antonio Salieri was the last Italian to serve as court Kapellmeister (1788 - 1824). 18th and 19th centuries Salieri’s most famous pupil was Franz Schubert, who was a chorister between 1803 and 1813. Court organist Wenzel Ruzicka felt that he could not teach Schubert anything, “he has learnt it from God”, and Antonio Salieri, the Hofkapellmeister, told him outright that he thought he was a genius. The quiet Schubert played violin in the school’s orchestra; the ensemble was good enough to tackle symphonies by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven and received public praise for their performances. Schubert, who began to compose at that time, was happy with the music at the choir school, but otherwise seems to have had his reservations about boarding life. His main gripe: the food - not unlike todays’ choristers. Schubert later applied unsuccessfully for the post of assistant Hofkapellmeister. Among the eminent musicians in the late nineteenth century were Anton Bruckner (court organist from 1878 to 1892) and conductor Hans Richter. Like Schubert, Richter was a former chorister. He served as Hofkapellmeister from 1893 to 1900. The 20th century: Josef Schnitt After the demise of the Austrian monarchy, the Hofmusikkapelle and the court choristers fell on hard times. The last chorister left the school in 1920, and the Hofmusikkapelle was taken over by the Austrian ministry of education. There was no money, and no interest in keeping up a boys' choir - logistics would have been too complicated. No new boys were hired. The ladies of the Vienna State Opera Chorus sang the soprano and alto parts in the Imperial Chapel. When in 1922 the musicians ceased to play, something had to be done. Josef Schnitt, who had become dean of the chapel in 1921, used his own private money to revive the boys' choir, but he had to get permission from the ministry first. This was a long process. Once he had permission, Schnitt advertised auditions for choristers. Together with Heinrich Müller, the chapel's music director, he selected 30 boys. The boys were coached over the summer of 1924, and services with boys resumed in September 1924. In 1925, Schnitt lost all his assets and was forced to look for other sources of income. In 1926, the choir gave their first concerts outside the Imperial Chapel. The choir sang motets and lieder, and - at the boys' own request- singspiele. The success was incredible: within a year, the boys sang in Berlin (with none other than Erich Kleiber conducting), then in Prague, Switzerland, Athens. By 1932 they reached the USA. Today the Hofmusikkapelle consists of conductors and organists, the Wiener Sängerknaben and members of the Vienna State Opera Chorus and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. The Hofmusikkapelle performs in the Imperial Chapel on Sundays. Soprano and alto solos are sung by choristers, and the liturgigal Gregorian chant is sung by the chapel's Schola Cantorum whose members are former Wiener Sängerknaben. |
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