Sing-Akademie zu Berlin
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The Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, also known as the Berliner Singakademie, is a musical (originally
choral A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which ...
) society founded in Berlin in 1791 by
Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch (1736–1800) was a German composer and harpsichordist. Born in Zerbst, he was the son of the composer Johann Friedrich Fasch. He was initially taught by his father. In 1756 he began service at the court of Frederic ...
,
harpsichord A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
ist to the court of
Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
, on the model of the 18th-century London
Academy of Ancient Music The Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) is a British period-instrument orchestra based in Cambridge, England. Founded by harpsichordist Christopher Hogwood in 1973, it was named after an 18th-century organisation of the same name (originally the A ...
.


Early history

The origins of the Singakademie are difficult to discern because the group was initially intended as a private gathering of music lovers and only later became a public institution. The Singakademie grew out of a small circle of singers who met regularly in the garden house of the privy councillor Milow. Their weekly meetings seemed to have resembled those of the then popular ''Singethees.''
Carl Friedrich Zelter Carl Friedrich Zelter (11 December 1758 15 May 1832)Grove/Fuller-Datei:Carl-Friedrich-Zelter.jpegMaitland, 1910. The Zelter entry takes up parts of pages 593-595 of Volume V. was a German composer, conductor and teacher of music. Working in his ...
describes them as rather informal meetings: "One gathered in the evening, drank tea, spoke, talked, in short entertained oneself; and the matter itself was only secondary." Singer and songwriter
Charlotte Caroline Wilhelmine Bachmann Charlotte Caroline Wilhelmine Bachmann, née Stöwe (2 November 1757 – 19 August 1817) was a German soprano singer, harpsichordist and composer. She was born in Berlin, the daughter of musician Wilhelm Heinrich Stöwe, and studied singing and harp ...
was one of the original founding members. Until the early nineteenth century, most musical concert and opera performances consisted of the music of living composers. The Akademie was intended by Fasch to revive music of the past as well as to perform that of the present. In fact its first performance was a 16-part
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 ...
by Fasch himself, but it also regularly performed music by
J. S. Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...
and other earlier masters. Fasch had been a pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach's son
C. P. E. Bach Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (8 March 1714 – 14 December 1788), also formerly spelled Karl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, and commonly abbreviated C. P. E. Bach, was a German Classical period musician and composer, the fifth child and sec ...
and instilled the devotion to Bach that has been a continuing feature of the Akademie. By the time of Fasch's death on 3 August 1800 the Akademie had about 100 members, and had received many notable visitors keen to experience its unique sound, including
Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
who came in June 1796. After Fasch's death, his pupil
Carl Friedrich Zelter Carl Friedrich Zelter (11 December 1758 15 May 1832)Grove/Fuller-Datei:Carl-Friedrich-Zelter.jpegMaitland, 1910. The Zelter entry takes up parts of pages 593-595 of Volume V. was a German composer, conductor and teacher of music. Working in his ...
became leader of the Akademie, continuing Fasch's ambitions and objectives. In 1807 he began an
orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...
to accompany the Akademie, and in 1808 he founded a men's choir ('Liedertafel'), which became a model for similar choirs flourishing in the early nineteenth century and dedicated to German national music. The members of the Akademie were originally drawn from the wealthy bourgeois of Berlin. From early days they also included members of some of Berlin's wealthiest Jewish families, including the
Itzig family Many of the thirteen children of Daniel Itzig and Miriam Wulff, and their descendants and spouses, had significant impact on both Jewish and German social and cultural (especially musical) history. Notable ones are set out below. Daniel Itzig (172 ...
and descendants of
Moses Mendelssohn Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729 – 4 January 1786) was a German-Jewish philosopher and theologian. His writings and ideas on Jews and the Jewish religion and identity were a central element in the development of the ''Haskalah'', or 'Je ...
. These families were to have a significant influence on the history of the Akademie. Moses Mendelssohn's son,
Abraham Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Jew ...
joined the Akademie in 1793 and Itzig's granddaughter, Lea Salomon, in 1796. They were later to marry and their children
Felix Felix may refer to: * Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name Places * Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen * Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, ...
and Fanny were leading members of the Akademie in the 1820s.


Library

Itzig's daughter (and hence Felix's great-aunt) Sarah Levy (1761-1854), a fine keyboard player who had been taught by
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (22 November 17101 July 1784), the second child and eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach, was a German composer and performer. Despite his acknowledged genius as an organist, improviser and composer ...
, played concerti by Bach and others in many Akademie concerts and at Zelter's "Ripienschule" in the period 1806-1815. Her large collection of manuscripts of music of the Bach family, together with many others acquired by Abraham Mendelssohn from the widow of C. P. E. Bach, were left to the Akademie. Zelter also had a fine collection of Bach and Bach family manuscripts which he gave to the Akademie. By these means it acquired one of the finest collections of Bachiana in the world. The collection was looted by the
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
in 1945 and hidden in the
Kyiv Conservatory Pyotr Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine ( uk, Національна музична академія України імені Петра Чайковського) or Kyiv Conservatory is a Ukrainian state institution of higher music e ...
, but was returned to Germany after its rediscovery in 2000.Patricia Kennedy Grimsted
"Bach is Back in Berlin: The Return of the Sing-Akademie Archive from Ukraine in the Context of Displaced Cultural Treasures and Restitution Politics"
''Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute'', 2003. pp. 24-26

See link for the story
. Today, the collection is temporarily housed in the music section of the
Berlin State Library The Berlin State Library (german: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; officially abbreviated as ''SBB'', colloquially ''Stabi'') is a universal library in Berlin, Germany and a property of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. It is one of the larg ...
.


Later history

The success of the Akademie encouraged the founding of a new and permanent home. This was established in 1827 in
Unter den Linden Unter den Linden (, "under the linden trees") is a boulevard in the central Mitte district of Berlin, the capital of Germany. Running from the City Palace to Brandenburg Gate, it is named after the linden (lime in England and Ireland, not re ...
and became a major Berlin concert hall, at which many famous musicians were to give concerts, including Paganini,
Schumann Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
, and
Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with ...
. On 11 March 1829, the 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn, who was himself a pupil of Zelter, conducted here his famous revival of Bach's
St Matthew Passion The ''St Matthew Passion'' (german: Matthäus-Passion, links=-no), BWV 244, is a '' Passion'', a sacred oratorio written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by Picander. It sets ...
, a major milestone in re-establishing its composer's reputation as a founding father of European musical traditions. In 1832 on the death of Zelter, Mendelssohn had some hopes of succeeding him, but in the event the post went to the older, mediocre, but 'safe pair of hands' of
Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen (first name also sometimes given as Karl;Eitner (1889) 27 September 1778 – 21 December 1851) was a German composer and music teacher. Life Rungenhagen abandoned early study of art under Daniel Chodowiecki and jo ...
(1778–1851). Subsequent directors of the Akademie were: * August Eduard Grell (1853–76) *
Martin Traugott Blumner Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austra ...
(1876–1900) * Georg Schumann (1900–50) * Mathieu Lange (1950–73) * Hans Hilsdorf (1973–99) *
Joshard Daus Joshard Daus (1947, Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST ...
(2002–06) * Kai-Uwe Jirka (2006–present) After the separation between East and West Berlin, the Berliner Singakademie was founded in 1963 in East Berlin. This other Berliner Singakademie is a leading oratory choir in the united Berlin today.


References


Bibliography

*''Die Sing-Akademie zu Berlin und ihre Direktoren''. ed. Gottfried Eberle and Michael Rautenberg. Berlin, 1998. *''Die Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. Festschrift zum 175-jährigen Bestehen''. ed. Werner Bollert. Berlin, 1966


External links


Website of the original (1791) Sing-Akademie (in German)
br />Some of the above information is sourced from this site. {{authority control Musical groups from Berlin German choirs Organizations established in 1791 Arts organizations established in the 18th century 1791 establishments in Prussia