Vienna Boys Choir - Thursday, December 4, 2008
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Program notes
Gerald Wirth, Artistic Director

Gerald Wirth received his first musical training as a member of the Wiener Sängerknaben and at the Bruckner Konservatorium in Linz, Austria, where he studied voice, oboe and piano. In the 1980s, Wirth was a choirmaster of the Wiener Sängerknaben, later he became chorus master of the Landestheater Salzburg (Salzburg opera house). In the 1990s, he took over as artistic director of the Calgary Boys’ Choir. He also held the post of musical director of the Calgary Civic Symphony and of Sangita, Calgary’s professional vocal ensemble, and he was Associate Conductor of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra.

Wirth’s main interest is working with choirs: in 1998, he became assistant of Norbert Balatsch, then the artistic director of the Wiener Sängerknaben whom he succeeded in 2001. He is much in demand as choral clinician, and has held international workshops on choral conducting, voice training and performance.

As a composer, Wirth is constantly seeking new challenges and frontiers. His works are often inspired by myths and philosophical texts; in his music, he likes to combine elements of Gregorian chant with elements of ethnic music, and he makes use of strong rhythms.
Gerald Wirth is convinced that music has a positive influence on every aspect of personality and he encourages his students to realise their potential. “A choir consists of many individuals who are supposed to act as a team, or even as one person. A concert can only be truly good if and when everyone adds his own personality to the mix. But if that happens, it’s magic.”

Vienna Boys Choir History

In 1498, more than half a millennium ago, Emperor Maximilian I 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 - in consequence - the Vienna Boys' Choir. Until 1918, the choir sang exclusively for the court, at mass, at private concerts and functions 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. Composers Jacobus Gallus, Franz Schubert, and conductors Hans Richter, Felix Mottl and Clemens Krauss were themselves choristers. Brothers Joseph and Michael Haydn were members of the choir of St. Stephen's Cathedral, and sang frequently with the imperial boys' choir.

In 1918, after the breakdown of the Habsburg empire, the Austrian government took over the court opera (i.e. the opera, its orchestra and the adult singers), but not the choir boys. The Choir owes its survival to the initiative of Josef Schnitt, who became Dean of the Imperial Chapel in 1921. Schnitt 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 around 300 concerts and performances each year in front of almost half a million people. Each group spends nine to eleven weeks of the school year on tour. They visit virtually all European countries, and they are frequent guests in Asia, Australia and the Americas.

Together with members of 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.

The choir is a private, not-for-profit organization. The eight members of the choir's governing body oversee its development and guarantee its future. Dr. Eugen Jesser became the choir's president in 2001, and its director in 2003. Gerald Wirth became the choir's artistic director in 2001.