The Lower Rhenish Music Festival (German: Das Niederrheinische Musikfest) was one of the most important

festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...

s of

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

, which happened every year between 1818 and 1958, with few exceptions, at

Pentecost Pentecost (also called Whit Sunday, Whitsunday or Whitsun) is a Christianity, Christian holiday which takes place on the 50th day (the seventh Sunday) after Easter Sunday. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles in the Ne ...

for 112 times.

History

In the year 1817 Johann Schornstein, the musical director at

Elberfeld Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929. History The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "''elverfelde''" was in a docu ...

, organized a music festival in his town, in which he was assisted by the musicians from

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

under their conductor

Friedrich August Burgmüller Friedrich August Burgmüller (3 May 1760 – 21 August 1824) was a German pianist, Kapellmeister and Conducting, conductor as well as the first municipal music director in Düsseldorf and co-founder of the Lower Rhenish Music Festival. He is the fat ...

. During this festival the idea was born by Schornstein and Burgmüller to repeat this event every year alternately between their cities. In the year 1821 the musicians from

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

and 1825 from

Aachen Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...

participated, but with the performance 1827 the responsible persons of Elberfeld decided to stop their commitment, because the town was not up to manage the rush of musicians and guests. This festival continued up to 1958 and took place 112 times. Only during the period of the

Revolutions of 1848 in the German states In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

and the

First First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

and

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the meeting was interrupted. After the last war in the year 1948 Cologne resigned out of this cycle of the music festival, whereas the cities

Wuppertal Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and to ...

, a fusion of Elberfeld and

Barmen Barmen is a former industrial metropolis of the region of Bergisches Land, Germany, which merged with four other towns in 1929 to form the city of Wuppertal. Barmen, together with the neighbouring town of Elberfeld founded the first electric ...

, and

Duisburg Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in Nor ...

acceded to this meeting. But in the year 1958 the festival was closed definitely, because in the meantime some other regional music festivals were founded. At the beginning the Lower Rhenish Music Festival continued two days and from the year 1826 one day more, every year during Whitsuntide. Temporary in 1834 the king

Frederick William III of Prussia Frederick William III (german: Friedrich Wilhelm III.; 3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840) was King of Prussia from 16 November 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until 6 August 1806, wh ...

interdicted this performance on Whitsun for religious reasons, but by the intercession of his nephew prince Frederick of Prussia, an art enthusiast and protector of the art societies of Düsseldorf, the festival regained permission with some restrictions.

Characteristics

From the beginning the Lower Rhenish Music Festival apprehended as a societal and cultural culmination on a highly artistically level. To the home and foreign guests, politicians, business people and members of the high nobility there were presented all the compositions, which played a significant role at that time. In addition to the local music directors many important conductors, composers and soloists were engaged as director of the festivals. Again and again the stage was used for the performance of world and national premieres and also for the presentation of new versions by known or unknown artists. The focus comprised the music of the last epochs of the

Baroque music Baroque music ( or ) refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transiti ...

, the

Viennese classical The Classical period was an era of classical music between roughly 1750 and 1820. The Classical period falls between the Baroque and the Romantic periods. Classical music has a lighter, clearer texture than Baroque music, but a more sophistic ...

as well as the

Romantic Music Romantic music is a stylistic movement in Western Classical music associated with the period of the 19th century commonly referred to as the Romantic era (or Romantic period). It is closely related to the broader concept of Romanticism—the ...

and later of the

20th-century classical music 20th-century classical music describes art music that was written nominally from 1901 to 2000, inclusive. Musical style diverged during the 20th century as it never had previously. So this century was without a dominant style. Modernism, impressio ...

. There were performed the great symphonic poems,

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

oratorio An oratorio () is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists. Like most operas, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias. However, opera is mus ...

chorale Chorale is the name of several related musical forms originating in the music genre of the Lutheran chorale: * Hymn tune of a Lutheran hymn (e.g. the melody of "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme"), or a tune in a similar format (e.g. one of the t ...

cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning of ...

s and here and there

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...

. This implicated that sometimes the participation of more than 500 musicians. On one side the high number of musicians and the foreign guests connoted a lucrative revenue stream but on the other side also a logistical challenge and risk for the organization.

Chronology

The table lists the chronology of the Lower Rhenish Music Festival, compiled from a selection of reliable sources.

Literature (selection)

* Literaturverzeichnis der Rheinischen Musikfeste in der Bibliothek des Beethovenhauses Bonn
Beethoven-Haus Bonn / literature, sheet music, audiovisual media - Short entries of query results
* Lutz Felbick: ''Daten der Aachener Musikgeschichte: Chronologie und Bibliographie'', Stadt Aachen 1993

* Alf, Julius: ''Geschichte und Bedeutung der Niederrheinischen Musikfeste in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jh.''; Nachdruck aus: ''Düsseldorfer Jahrbuch''. 42. 1940 und 43. 1941. Düsseldorf, 1978, * Dohm, Rudolf: ''Aachens Beitrag zur Musikgeschichte''; in 105. Niederrheinisches Musikfest 1950 in Wuppertal. S. 31–45. * Programme sämtlicher in Aachen abgehaltener (Niederrheinischer) Musikfeste (von 1825 - 1879). in: ''Aachener Calender für das Jahr 1880''. S. 107–119. und in: ''Musik, Theater und Kunst im Jahre 1878/79''. S. 97–101. * Sietz, Reinhold: ''Das 35. Rheinische Musikfest 1857 unter dem Dirigenten Franz Liszt''; in: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein (ZAGV). 69. 1957. S. 79–110. * Sietz, Reinhold: ''Das Niederrheinische Musikfest 1834 zu Aachen''; in: ZAGV. 70. 1958. S. 167–191. * Sietz, Reinhold: ''Die Niederrheinischen Musikfeste in Aachen in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jh.''; in: ZAGV. 72. 1960. . * Julius Alf: ''Das Niederrheinische Musikfest in Wuppertal. "Moderne Musik" in Geschichte und Gegenwart''; in: ''Beiträge zur Rheinischen Musikgeschichte'', Köln/Krefeld 005, 1952 *

Klaus Wolfgang Niemöller Klaus Wolfgang Niemöller (21 July 1929 in Gelsenkirchen) is a German musicology, musicologist. Life and career Niemöller studied musicology at the University of Cologne from 1950 to 1955. Afterwards he received his doctorate with a dissertati ...

: ''Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy und das Niederrheinische Musikfest 1835 in Köln''; in: ''Beiträge zur Rheinischen Musikgeschichte'', Köln/Krefeld 0625, 1952 * Ursula Eckart-Bäcker: ''Friedrich Nietzsche als Sänger in Köln. Berichte über das 42. Niederrheinische Musikfest 1865''; in: ''Beiträge zur Rheinischen Musikgeschichte'', Köln/Krefeld 062, 1952 * Julius Alf: ''Das Niederrheinische Musikfest nach 1945. Ausklang einer Jahrhundert-Tradition'', in: ''Düsseldorfer Jahrbuch'' 57/58, 1980, S. 472–497 * Willibald Gurlitt: ''Robert Schumann und die Romantik in der Musik, 106. Niederrheinisches Musikfest in Düsseldorf'', Jahrbuch 1951, S. 13–52. - Nachdruck 1966

Websites

DNB, Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek

Heimatverein Düsseldorfer Jonges e. V.
* https://web.archive.org/web/20110719085302/http://www.staedtischermusikvereinduesseldorf.de/lebenslauf/lebenslauf_druck.php
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung – Wikisource
{{Authority control Classical music festivals in Germany Defunct music festivals Music in Düsseldorf Music in Cologne Aachen Culture in Wuppertal Music festivals established in 1818 1818 establishments in Prussia 1958 disestablishments in Germany