AMS Philadelphia 2009 Abstracts - American Musicological Society

44 Thursday afternoon AMS Philadelphia 2009
FROM “CHORUS MUSICUS” AND “GROSSES CONCERT”
TO “STADT- UND KIRCHENORCHESTER”: THE
TRANSFORMATION AND MODERNIZATION OF LEIPZIG
MUSICAL INSTITUTIONS BETWEEN 1781 AND 1843
Anselm Hartinger
Schola Cantorum Basiliensis
Between 1781 and 1843 the organization of Leipzig town music was changed completely.
In a process lasting several decades Leipzig officials managed to modernize and professionalize
both Leipzig concert and church music by transforming the old privileged order of
town musicians (the so-called “Stadtpfeifer” and “Kunstgeiger”) into a new system based
mainly on a supposedly amateur institution—the “Grosses Concert”—, whose musicians
in fact were highly professional. These musicians were not only the main resource of the
famous “Gewandhaus” concerts reorganized in 1781 but also became the core of the “Kirchenorchester”
accompanying the music performances in the main Leipzig churches and of the
“Theaterorchester” playing in the opera house. During this process a small pressure group
of professional musicians, town and state officials, merchants, and publishers managed to
control and develop the city’s entire musical life, including the boys’ choir at St. Thomas, the
university, the opera house (Stadtheater), and even the growing number of amateur choirs,
by introducing a system of personal successorships, cross-relations, and shared responsibility
among the important musical posts. The year 1843, which saw the inauguration of the Bach
monument, the jubilee concert for the anniversary of the “Gewandhaus” concerts, and the
opening of the newly-founded conservatory, may well be considered a point of final consolidation
to that process.
These developments were doubtless the starting-point of the astonishing rise of Leipzig as
a musical capital of European range in the era of Mendelssohn and a main force behind the
Leipzig Bach-revival in the years after 1835. It is surprising and revealing that this system of
(partly informal) cooperation among the various institutions has been maintained until today
despite showing signs of stagnation since the later nineteenth century.
Despite the above-described close cooperation, the different musical institutions were able
to develop and cultivate their own repertoire traditions, at the same time playing their part
in the creation of a “myth” of the music history of Leipzig constructed mainly by Friedrich
Rochlitz and involving the names of Bach, Mozart, and later Mendelssohn, among others.
This important process, which might serve as a case study for the interpretation of developments
taking place in several German towns and regions at the turn from eighteenth to
nineteenth century, has not been examined in detail for a long time. Following a thorough
survey of archival documents and contemporary newspapers, my paper will outline its crucial
stages and discuss its results. I will also discuss the connections of these musical developments
to the economical, cultural and political changes from the Ancien Regime to the 1830/31 constitutional
process and the 1848 revolution.