Vienna Boys Choir

In 1498, half a millenium ago, Emperor Maximilian I of Austria moved his court and his court musicians from Innsbruck to Vienna. He gave specific instructions that there were to be six boys among his musicians. For want of a foundation charter, historians have settled on 1498 as the official foundation date of the Vienna Hofmusikkapelle and the Vienna Choir Boys. The choir sang exclusively for the court, at mass, at private concerts and on state occasions. Musicians like Heinrich Isaac, Paul Hofhaimer, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Johann Joseph Fux, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Caldara, Antonio Salieri and Anton Bruckner worked with the choir. Some were choristers themselves, such as composers Jacobus Gallus, Franz Schubert, and – as substitutes- the brothers Franz Joseph and Michael Haydn, and the conductors Hans Richter, Felix Mottl and Clemens Krauss. In 1918, after the breakdown of the Habsburg empire, the Austrian government took over the court opera (i.e. the orchestra and the adult singers), but not the choir boys. The Wiener Sängerknaben owe their survival to the initiative of Josef Schnitt, who became dean of the imperial chapel in 1921. Schnitt, a shrewd businessman, established the boys' choir as a private institution: the former court choir boys became the Wiener Sängerknaben, the imperial uniform was replaced by the sailor suit, then the height of boys' fashion. Funding was not enough to pay for the boys' upkeep, and in 1926 the choir started to give concerts outside of the chapel, performing motets, secular works, and - at the boys' request - children's operas. The impact was amazing: Within a year, the Wiener Sängerknaben were performing in Berlin (where Erich Kleiber conducted them), Prague and Zurich. Athens and Riga (1928) followed, then Spain, France, Denmark, Norway and Sweden (1929), the United States (1932), Australia (1934) and South America (1936). Today there are around 100 choristers between the ages of ten and fourteen, divided into four touring choirs. The four choirs give between 300 and 330 concerts and performances each year. Each group spends nine to eleven weeks of the year on tour. They visit virtually all European countries, and they are frequent guests in Asia, Australia and the Americas. Together with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera Chorus, the Wiener Sängerknaben maintain the tradition of the imperial musicians: as Hofmusikkapelle they provide the music for the Sunday Mass in Vienna's Imperial Chapel, as they have done since 1498. Gerald Wirth succeeded Norbert Balatsch as the choir's artistic director in 2001. The choir's repertoire includes everything from Gregorian Chant to contemporary and experimental music. Motets and lieder for boys' choir form the core of the touring repertoire, as do the choir's own arrangements of waltzes and polkas by Strauss. Benjamin Britten wrote the vaudeville The Golden Vanity for them, and even conducted its premiere at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1967. Austrian composers Heinz Kratochwil, Ernst Krenek, Anton Heiller have written works specifically for the choir. The Hofmusikkapelle continues to commission sacred works. The Wiener Sängerknaben collaborate with a number of men's choirs and orchestras to perform major choral works. The choir is regularly asked to supply soloists for large choral and orchestral works, such as Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, Mahler's Das klagende Lied . Recent guest conductors include Pierre Boulez, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Sir Neville Marriner, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti (honorary member of the Hofmusikkapelle) and Kent Nagano. A very important part of the repertoire are staged works. The Wiener Sängerknaben regularly produce their own children's operas; most recently Benjamin Britten's The Little Sweep, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Bastien udn Bastienne, Joseph Rheinberger's Das Zauberwort, Gerald Wirth's The Little Prince, based on the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Wirth is currently writing a new opera for the choir. Choristers also take part in opera performances at different opera houses. In 2001-2002, they can be seen at the Vienna State Opera, at the Vienna Volksoper and at the Opera House in Graz, in performances of Die Zauberflöte, Carmen, Gianni Scicchi, La Bohème, The Turn of the Screw, Tosca. The Wiener Sängerknaben are branching out. New collaborations with stage directors, writers, musicologists, dancers, actors, choreographers, photographers, film makers, painters, sculptors help define new formats on stage. "Inspiration", a journey through the spiritual music of different cultures, was the result of such a collaboration. The boys are required to sing in different tone systems, they process, move, sway, even dance and play ethnic instruments. Other projects include Jewish music, both traditional and contemporary, pop hip hop, videos and film music. The choir has contributed to a number of film soundtracks in recent years: Primal Fear (USA 1996); The 13th Floor (USA 1999 - you can listen to 30 seconds from this soundtrack in our discography); Dokuritsu shonen-gasshoudan (Japan 2000); the animated Doraemon (Japan 2000), I.C.E. (USA 2001). The Wiener Sängerknaben have their own school. Almost 250 children study and rehearse in the Augartenpalais, a baroque palace in Vienna. Beginning with kindergarten, boys and girls are provided with a complete musical and general education through the elementary grades. At age ten, the most talented boys are selected to join the choir and enter the choir’s grammar school. All boys are assigned to one of the touring choirs. Academic lessons are taught in small groups. The school has a band, and offers extracurricular activities ranging from sports (baseball, judo, soccer, rollerblading, swimming) to attending (pop) concerts, operas, plays, musicals and movies. The choristers are also encouraged to create their own projects; a number of them write, act and direct short sketches about life at the school. The school is proud of its alumni, many of whom go on to become professional musicians, conductors, singers or instrumentalists, in Vienna and throughout the world. Many others continue to sing; there are two male voice ensembles made up entirely of former Wiener Sängerknaben, the Chorus Viennensis and the Imperial Chapel’s Schola Cantorum. All former students retain a lifelong commitment to the arts.