Choral Singing : Histories and Practices [1 ed.] 9781443869041, 9781443863315

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Choral Singing

Choral Singing: Histories and Practices

Edited by

Ursula Geisler and Karin Johansson

Choral Singing: Histories and Practices, Edited by Ursula Geisler and Karin Johansson This book first published 2014 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2014 by Ursula Geisler, Karin Johansson and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-6331-9, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-6331-5

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Histories and Practices of Choral Singing in Context Ursula Geisler and Karin Johansson Histories Chapter One ............................................................................................... 14 Little Citizens and Petites Patries: Learning Patriotism through Choral Singing in Antwerp in the Late Nineteenth Century Josephine Hoegaerts Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 33 ‘Ich bin nun getröstet’: Choral Communications in Ein deutsches Requiem Annika Lindskog Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 52 The Tapiola Choir and Finnishness: Nationalism and the Institutional Support of Contemporary Music in Finland Lauren Frankel Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 64 Estonian Song Celebrations as Drivers for Political and Social Change Laine Randjärv Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 87 ‘Grüß Gott mit hellem Klang!’: The Medialisation in Films of the Bourgeois Lay Choir Movement in the Weimar Republic Helmke Jan Keden Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 100 The 19th in the 21st Century? The German Male Choir Block Buster Die Wacht am Rhein and its Mediality on YouTube Martin Loeser

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Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 113 The Involvement of Freemasons in the ‘Erstes Deutsches Sängerfest’ in Frankfurt-on-Main in 1838. Observations from a Choral-Sociological Perspective Friedhelm Brusniak Practices Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 124 1000 Years and 1000 Boys’ Voices: The Crisis and Radical Challenge for Choral Singing Martin Ashley Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 142 Modelling Choral Leadership Dag Jansson Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 165 Choral Aural Training Materials Soila Jaakkola Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 185 Confidence and the Choral Singer: The Choir as a Community of Practice Michael Bonshor Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 208 ‘Bouncing and Dancing’: The Use and Effect of Verbal Imagery in Choral Directing Mary Black Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 232 ‘I get sick if I don’t go to Choir Practice!’: Choral Singing as a Health Promoting Resource Anne Haugland Balsnes Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 250 The Interaction Choir–Orchestra in Ljus av ljus by Karin Rehnqvist Pedro Santos Contibutors .............................................................................................. 275

INTRODUCTION HISTORIES AND PRACTICES OF CHORAL SINGING IN CONTEXT URSULA GEISLER AND KARIN JOHANSSON

This anthology combines articles from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives. The development of joint approaches through combinations of theory, research traditions and methodology from differing traditions constitutes a scientific challenge, and there is as yet no discipline of choral studies in the academic field.1 Since choral singing is and has been powerful and influential both musically and socially, with a wide-ranging influence in most European countries during the last 150 years, we argue that a further development of platforms for interdisciplinary research in this area is relevant. Therefore the title of this volume - Choral singing. Histories and practices - aims at mirroring both the diversity of and the relationship between historical and contemporary choral practices. As editors of this volume, and as initiators and leaders of the international network Choir in Focus it has been our ambition both to encourage discussions and to overcome and transcend disciplinary boundaries. We have our academic backgrounds in differing methodological and theoretical traditions, but share the view that interdisciplinary approaches and a combination of perspectives on choral practices are relevant and of great value for all agents in the field. Consequently, this anthology reflects our purpose to include a multifaceted variety of topics and methodologies rather than excluding approaches that do not coincide with our own. However, in one respect the scope of this publication is limited: readers will notice that the countries represented are Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Germany, United Kingdom, Portugal and Belgium. The contributing authors all have a connection to the network Choir in Focus, and, consequently, a lot of the research and choral practice that actually exists globally does not appear here.2 This volume highlights some of the interesting common themes that have been addressed in the network since 2009, and we hope that they will inspire further developments.

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Choir in Focus – a background Why do people sing in choirs? Why should they? How can choral music making be improved and developed? What role does contemporary choral activity (in leadership, singing, and listening) play in the construction of social and musical meaning? How can historical knowledge and analysis shed light on contemporary problems and possibilities? How can choral research promote the development and expansion of new music today? Questions like these have been the starting point for our interest in developing a common platform for choral research. In a variety of disciplines, choir singing, choral practice, and common singing in general are explored as research objects. Together, these describe a complex and multi-faceted field of relevant cultural-historical, pedagogical, sociological, psychological and music-related topics.3 Researching choir culture demands and encourages a multitude of research strategies. Consequently, the disciplines that work with choirrelated research differ in theoretical and methodological traditions, as well as in definitions of ‘choir’ and of what choir research should be. Even though there are vast possibilities for co-operative and cross-disciplinary projects in this area, such studies are not common.4 Against this background, the network Choir in Focus was initiated in 2009 with the support from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. The network is based at Choir Centre South (Körcentrum Syd, www.korcentrumsyd.se), which was established in 2007 as a joint venture between Malmö Academy of Music, The Department of Musicology, Odeum (both at Lund University), Malmö Symphony Orchestra and Music South (Musik i Syd). The goal was to create a platform for the development of constructive questions related to ‘choir’ on an international basis and for the reflection on problems in common areas. With ‘choir’ as an over-arching umbrella concept the network would provide the scope for co-operation across national and disciplinary borders, for example, between the traditionally musicological discipline based in humanities, practice-based artistic research in the area of music performance and social-science-oriented research in music education. It was also seen as a starting point for debates around the musical and social function of choirs in modern society as mirroring collective and individual needs for meaning, health and wellbeing.5 The four main aims of the network were stated as x

bringing together competent European researchers in research fields related to choir singing and choral practice,

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x x x

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creating a European platform for the development of choir research in theory and practice situated in Sweden, investigating the need and scope for cross-disciplinary studies in this area, which is perceived as under-researched and as representing possibilities for constructive projects, developing profiled research questions and common projects in the field, which is internationally widespread and multifaceted.

Since 2009, Choir in Focus has been a forum for researchers from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. The participants represent a range of institutions and traditions and contribute with lived experience from differing research traditions. After two internal network meetings in Malmö/Lund 2009 and 2010, and a collaborative conference on choral topics at the chor.com in Dortmund in September 2011, the international conference International Conference on the Concepts and Practices of Choral Singing was held in Lund, Sweden, in October 2012. It was organised in order to make visible and available the contemporary dynamic development of choral research, and to highlight interdisciplinary investigations and interaction between practice-based and historical approaches in choral research. The conference broadened the choral research network contacts globally. In October 2014 an International symposium on the histories and practices of choral education takes place in connection with Lund Choral Festival. This symposium aims at highlighting interdisciplinary relationships between music educational and music historical approaches to choral research, as a platform for presentations and discussions with a focus on the history and mediality of choral education since the 18th century until today. The present anthology includes a selection of papers held at the conference in 2012. Thematically, these cover relevant choral topics from the 19th century until today. This is usually regarded as the time scope during which the secular choral practice of today has developed. However, some written sources bear witness of choral practices that can be traced back to the times of antique tragedy.

Choral practice as (re)presentation, (re)production and (re)creation Since Greek antiquity symbolic meaning and a specific societal status have been attributed to the collective choral voice. This collective voice has played a crucial role in defining ‘good’ and ‘valuable’ music as well as societies’ various needs for vocal representation. The antique tragedy

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actually originated in choral practice, which means that the ritual and symbolic function of choirs is not a new invention by, for example, the church or the different European nationalisation movements after the 18th century.6 The regulation of choral singing is highlighted in the philosopher Plato’s writings on the Republic and on the Laws, where music was defined as a state matter which ‘should be preserved [...] from innovation [...] for any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole State, and ought to be prohibited’.7 Choral singing is mentioned specifically: Again, the work of the chorus is co-extensive with the work of education; rhythm and melody answer to the voice, and the motions of the body correspond to all three, and the sound enters in and educates the soul in virtue [...] Music and dancing together form the choral art.8

This is an early description of a choral practice that also includes a choral definition. Choral activity is described as a combination of music/singing and dance, and music as such was thought to be so important for the functioning of the state that it should be regulated. These Platonic texts illustrate the very early connection between people’s music making and state regulations, which we recognize as a common feature of Western European music history during the last three centuries. Choral music making has otherwise mainly been connected with the church, where a choral canon and a culturally constructed meaning of religious choral singing have emerged. A complementary development was initiated by the French revolution and the Enlightenment ideas, which can be seen as starting points for community singing with other than religious prefixes. Choral practice can be seen as a field of simultaneous (re)presentation, (re)production and (re)creation. These three aspects and discourses interact on both collective and individual levels. They bring to the fore questions about how the collective voice represents societal development and change at the same time as it is conceived as an individual source of entertainment, relaxation or the experience of fine art. As (re)presentation, choirs embody a collective voice with the capacity of expressing a great variety of symbolic meanings. Through history, these have developed in societal processes that have shaped as well as transformed the public sphere. From being mainly connected to the church and to congregations, choral practice changed platform, expression and meaning during the different nationalisation processes of the 19th century. In most European countries, choral associations, singing groups and glee clubs then became visible agents in society, acting as representatives of the national community. As shown by Keden (Chapter Five) and Loeser (Chapter Six), choral practice can be transformed into other forms of

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media. For example, the transformation of the 11th German Choir Singers’ Festival 1932 into the soundtracked film ‘Grüss Gott mit hellem Klang’, or the male choir song Die Wacht am Rhein into postcards, paintings and YouTube clips demonstrate how musical meaning can be reconstructed and enacted in other settings. Ahlquist wonders: ‘Why have groups with political agendas often chosen choruses as public bearers of their messages?’9 Hoegaerts (Chapter One) presents one possible answer when she points to the important influence of the choral voice in the Belgian nationalisation process during the 19th century. She makes clear that the ‘careful use of different voices, unison, solos and polyphony complicates our understanding of nineteenthcentury patriotism and citizenship, showing that belonging to the nation could take other forms than participation in politics or even the state’s institutions’ (p. 23). This is also illustrated by Brusniak (Chapter Seven), who describes the close interrelation between Freemasonry and the German male choir movement in the 1830s. Both these examples show that singing societies in the 19th century and choirs in the 20th century were not only arenas for musical aesthetics. Correspondingly Lindskog, in a reflection upon Brahms’ Requiem (Chapter Two), suggests that for listeners, a focus on the socio-political implications of the musical work as well as on its aesthetical affordances might enhance the musical experience. It might also increase the awareness of how music interacts with social pathos. For example, she states that the Requiem has a connection with a ‘collective identifier, often referred to as “Nationalreligiosität”’ (p. 35). Social and national pathos is also demonstrated by Randjärv (Chapter Four) when she pictures how the Estonian song celebrations played an important role in political community shaping. Due to the double nature of the collective voice it may, on the one hand, be seen as a purely musical manifestation, and, on the other hand, be used for conveying covert political messages. From the perspective of (re)production, choir singing stands for stability as well as for change, which can be seen in contemporary developments of choral practice. Ashley (Chapter Eight) takes the English cathedral tradition as a starting point for reflecting upon steps that need to be taken in promoting boy’s choral singing today. According to him the crisis is ‘that if boys in the future sing only “embarrassing baby songs” and leave choirs before gaining an inkling of the power of serious choral music, choral directors are going to have to look a great deal harder than in the past for the ‘missing males’ when recruiting quality tenors and basses’ (p. 126). This means that new forms of performance practices have to be considered. However, even if there are many examples of initiatives

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aiming at a development of alternative formats of performance, conventional procedures still dominate the scene of choral singing. Bonshor (Chapter Eleven) emphasizes the need for rethinking the role of the choral leader and choral education, and for shifting ‘the locus of learning from an individual, teacher-led process to a more collaborative undertaking, in which the interactions between group members make a significant contribution to the learning process’ (p. 187). In contrast to this, Jansson (Chapter Nine), in a discussion of the conductor as a sensemaker, concludes that ‘although everyone in the choir is making sense of the music and of what they do, the sensemaking is a dedicated function of the conductor’s position’ (p. 151). The focus here is on a theoretical discussion of where musical meaning is situated and how it is communicated. A similar but more practice-based view-point is taken by Black (Chapter Twelve), in a study of how choral conductors transfer musical ideas to their choirs through verbal imagery. She points to the misunderstanding and confusion that may appear in the communication between conductors and singers and suggests that ‘conductors need not only to demonstrate vocally but also to enable singers to build a concept of that particular sound’ (p. 213). These examples illustrate the ongoing academic discussion about how and where musical meaning in choral singing is constructed, and points to the possibility of widening the debate as to engage practitioners. An example of research that might have this function is Jaakkola’s study of aural training material (Chapter Ten). She outlines the necessary competencies for choristers and says that ‘good choral aural skills include the ability to read a score both horizontally and vertically, knowledge of musical styles, an understanding of texture and tonal colour, and a sense of balance and dramaturgy’ (p. 182). Jaakkola presents an extensive overview of different ways to achieve this goal, which are all easily accessible as pedagogical material for both choir singers and leaders. Choir as a field of (re)creation can be interpreted in at least two ways: as a field of recreation for individual singers, conductors and composers, or as an arena for the creation of new music in interaction between participants in choral practice. Balsnes (Chapter Thirteen) illustrates the first aspect when she presents individual perspectives on ‘how people with specific health challenges use choral singing as a health resource’ (p. 233). She points to the fact that choral singing functions as a field of possibilities for singers who are otherwise not able to achieve mastery due to their social situations or health conditions. The second aspect deals with choral music as a field of possibilities for composers and interpreters of choral music, and with the choir as an instrument for musical expression.

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Santos (Chapter Fourteen) presents a detailed case study of how a prominent composer utilizes the artistic opportunities offered by the combination of a children’s choir and a symphony orchestra. On a more general level, Frankel (Chapter Three) points to how important social support and funding is for the production of new choral music. The commissions of new repertoire made by the Tapiola choir in the 1960s and 1970s, which was also part of the construction of Finnishness, led to a situation where ‘contemporary music emerged as one of Finland’s most successful cultural exports’ (p. 52). The three fields of investigation (re)presentation, (re)production and (re)creation can be seen as umbrella themes for the fourteen chapters collected here. They explore choral practice from differing theoretical and methodological starting points but all contribute to a transdisciplinary discussion about the origins, functions and meaning of choral singing.

Disposition The chapters of this volume are organized in the two sections Histories and Practices. However, as readers will notice, they overlap and are interrelated in many respects. In Chapter One, Little citizens and petites patries: Learning patriotism through choral singing in Antwerp in the late nineteenth century, Josephine Hoegaerts discusses the role of collective singing in the forming of the characteristic Belgian discourse on nationality, which depends on diversity and regionalism. With examples from school cantatas, she points to how they were important tools for doing and reproducing gender as well as future professional roles. Hoegaerts demonstrates how children’s singing and acting in these contexts meant practising citizenship and voicing a collective, patriotic discourse: ‘Rather than reflecting a simple, unified, nation, the cantatas presented a differentiated landscape populated with different groups whose gender, age, occupation and regional characteristics could easily be identified’ (p. 22). In Chapter Two ‘Ich bin nun getröstet’: Choral communications in Ein deutsches Requiem, Annika Lindskog focuses on the role of the choir in the creation of a collective, national identity in 19th century Germany. Lindskog discusses Brahms’ Requiem in a historical context and argues that music is never ‘only’ music but plays a part in political and social developments; it is always simultaneously locally situated and universally relevant. She problematizes the tendency towards polarising music into either an entirely political or a solely intra-musical phenomenon, and suggests that ‘opening up the interpretative hearings of nineteenth-century

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choral music to include a range of possible communications and concerns might be a way of situating it closer to its historical context and at the same time allow it to speak with multifarious voices’ (p. 47). In Chapter Three, The Tapiola choir and Finnishness: nationalism and the institutional support of contemporary music in Finland, Lauren Holmes Frankel describes the background to the Tapiola Choir, a Finnish children’s choir that enjoyed great success from its foundation in 1963. The choir was conducted by Erkki Pohjola and won the BBC competition in 1971. Frankel outlines Pohjola’s four working principles: (i) the ideal of a ‘Finnish’ sound, (ii) the choristers’ combination of singing with playing an instrument, (iii) the collaboration with contemporary composers, and (iv) an international outreach ambition. She goes on to discuss the relationship of the Tapiola Choir with the Finnish State policy of arts and points to how the choir’s success was a function of the interaction between musical visions and governmental support: ‘Institutions like the Tapiola Choir helped to create the contemporary identity that was presented to the world, by producing new music and continually reaffirming the existence of a nation’ (p. 62). In Chapter Four, Estonian song celebrations as drivers for political and social change, Laine Randjärv in parts describes the role of the Estonian song celebration tradition during the period after the Second World War from a subjective inside perspective. Randjärv pictures the history of song celebrations since the late 19th century and aims at showing how the repertoire and concert programmes reflect obedience but also rebellion against Soviet authorities. In an analysis of the repertoire, a central aim is to ‘bring out the methods that the Soviet authorities used in order to attract part of the creative intelligentsia to their cause and thus sow strong discord among creative figures’ (p. 70). In Chapter Five, ‘Grüß Gott mit hellem Klang!’ The medialisation in films of the bourgeois lay choir movement in the Weimar republic, Helmke Jan Keden presents a strategy for investigating films as a source for historical research, in which the film material is seen as representing a history of media culture. The described method was developed by Wiebke Glowatz, with the three main steps (i) criticism of sources, (ii) analysis of the film material, and (iii) interpretation. Keden analyses three films of major choral events made for propaganda purposes by the Deutscher Sängerbund (DSB) in Germany and Austria around 1930. In Chapter Six, The 19th in the 21st century? The German male choir block buster Die Wacht am Rhein and its mediality on YouTube, Martin Loeser defines mediality as resulting from a process of ‘accumulation of meaning, created by bringing together different media and different layers

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of sense’ (p. 101). He investigates the mediality of the German male choir song Die Wacht am Rhein by studying its impact, reception and function at different points in history through video clips on YouTube. The song was widely popular during the second half of the 19th century as a heroic representation of German national unity and resistance towards the neighbouring age-old enemy, France. Loeser shows how the song gains an extended meaning and function and has been used for neo Nazi purposes, for example, in Die Wacht an der Spree, which is made with a direct allusion to Die Wacht am Rhein and as a criticism of the democratic constitution of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (BRD). In Chapter Seven, The involvement of freemasons in the ‘Erstes Deutsches Sängerfest’ in Frankfurt-on-Main in 1838, Friedhelm Brusniak advocates the study of the connection between Freemasons and the German male choir. He points to the fact that further research is needed especially in order to ‘supply more differentiated answers to questions about the initiators and supporters of non-professional choral singing and their institutional and organisational alliances since the early 19th century’ (p. 114). Against this background, Brusniak claims that it has to be taken into consideration that perhaps the involvement of Freemasons in the First German Sängerfest in Frankfurt 1838 ‘was greater than previously supposed’ (p. 117). In Chapter Eight, 1000 years and 1000 boys’ voices: the crisis and radical challenge for choral singing, Martin Ashley discusses the missing-male problem in classical choral singing in England, and states that the country has ‘for so long enjoyed such choral riches through its professional cathedral choirs that the decline of the “grass-roots” infrastructure in amateur choral singing with boys at parish, school and community level has failed to motivate alternatives’ (p. 139). However, he points out that ‘crisis’ might mean a turning-point rather than disaster, and draws on successful examples from France and Scotland to show how new forms of boys’ choral singing may develop in the wake of secularisation. In Chapter Nine, Modelling choral leadership, Dag Jansson departs from an overarching discussion of models for music-making and choral leadership; as leadership, in terms of musical meaning and as a set of competencies. He presents the enactment model, which builds on a research project that investigated choral leadership through the lived experience of 22 Norwegian accomplished choral singers with abundant experience of different choral directors. The model is intended as a tool for scholarly discussions in connection with choral research as well as an inspiration in musical practice. It encompasses factors such as (i) control

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and engagement, (ii) rehearsal and management, (iii) music skills and knowledge, and (iv) mentorship. In Chapter Ten, Choral aural training materials, Soila Jaakkola presents a study made against the scarce research on musical literacy and the lacking training of sight-reading skills in choirs. It is based on the questions: (1) Which basic concepts in the theory of music are featured in choral aural training textbooks? and (2) What teaching methods were selected for choral aural training textbooks? Her aim is to contribute to choral education by way of enhancing the sight-reading and sight-singing ability of adult choir members. In her study, Jaakkola investigated 40 aural training books and presents six of these as case studies, each illustrating one methodological pathway to meaningful choral ear training. In Chapter Eleven, Confidence and the choral singer: The choir as a community of practice, Michael Bonshor notes the absence of research related to adult amateur choral singing. He argues that each choir forms a community of practice and that the singers learn not only from the choir leader but also from each other as ‘informal’ team leaders. Thus, one of Bonshor’s conclusions is that ‘reciprocal, collaborative learning amongst participants is often of more importance than might be anticipated, bearing in mind the conventional view of the choir being passively led and taught by the conductor’ (p. 199). Consequently, musical learning and confidence building to a great extent take place in the social interaction between singers. In the light of this, Bonshor suggests that the role of the conductor should be reinterpreted as that of a member of the community of practice, hereby ‘reframing the role of the conductor or teacher as a facilitator and “senior learner” who contributes to the collective learning process, rather than as a leader who is solely responsible for group learning’ (p. 204). In Chapter Twelve, ‘Bouncing and dancing’: the use and effect of verbal imagery in choral directing, Mary Black discusses the definition, function and use of verbal imagery in choral directors’ work. She points to the fact that there is little research in the area and puts the question: What is the function of verbal imagery in choral work? Black defines verbal imagery as something that has the aim of influencing and changing the singers’ output, in contrast to, for example, musical imagery as described by other researchers. In a study of 16 choir directors and their choirs, she has investigated the work with imagery through questionnaires, observations and interviews. Based on the data, Black concludes that verbal imagery is a powerful tool in communicating intentions to the singers, who ultimately are the ones who produce the music. She argues that ‘success in explaining imagery effectively may be the key to enabling singers to improve or change the sound’ (p. 213-214).

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In Chapter Thirteen, ‘I get sick if I don’t go to choir practice!’ Choral singing as a health promoting resource, Anne Haugland Balsnes focuses on the positive health effects of choir singing: ‘Choral singing can prove to be a source of a sense of mastery, the experience of social and musical belonging, powerful and positive musical experiences that contribute to sustaining a healthy emotional life, and contribute to perceptions of meaning and coherence in life’ (p. 232). Starting from individual pictures of four choral singers who have all been affected by illness, she points to how one important aspect for these experienced singers is that the choir is not intended as therapy, that is to say, they do not sing in the choir in order to get well, but with the aim of making music. Balsnes connects to Tia de Nora’s use of the concept asylum as, on the one hand, encouraging creative and expanding activity and, on the other hand, providing a restorative and protective space. She argues that ‘in the first sense, choral singing adds positive experiences to the lives of the interviewees – experiences of mastery, achievement and community. In the second sense, choral singing is a “bubble” where the choristers can distance themselves from illness, pain and other difficulties of life’ (p. 244). In Chapter Fourteen, The interaction choir-orchestra in Ljus av ljus by Karin Rehnqvist, Pedro Santos describes the importance of the Swedish choral tradition for the development of high-ranking children’s choirs. He illustrates this with Karin Rehnqvist’s piece Ljus av ljus and describes the characteristics of her style, for example her ‘sensibility to timbre, her mastery of orchestration techniques, use of modernistic materials (for instance clusters and extended instrumental techniques), exploration of sound spatialization and her interest in experimental approaches to performance’ (p. 252). Santos concludes that the work Ljus av ljus is a good example of the successful combination of children’s voices and the symphony orchestra. In his analysis of the piece, Santos shows how Rehnqvist’s work with the vocal material was made before the orchestral part, and points to the interaction between these two bodies of sound. He recommends Ljus av ljus as a role model for composers who want to write for children’s voices and symphony orchestra.

Notes 1

Recently, The Croatian Choral Directors Association has coined the term ‘Chorusology’ as ‘the multidisciplinary science of the choral art’. See www.choralcroatia.com/Choralis2014.aspx [2014-05-20]. There is – as far as we can see – no wider academic discussion on this term or on questions of establishing a separate scientific discipline called ‘Chorusology’ within the academic curriculum.

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Cf. Geisler, U. (2010). Choral Research. A Global Bibliography / Körforskning. En bibliografi. Malmö/Lund: Körcentrum Syd. [http://www.korcentrumsyd.se/wpcontent/uploads/Geisler-2010_Choral-Research_A-Global-Bibliography.pdf] 3 Cf. Geisler (2010). 4 Bresler, L. (Ed.). (2007). International handbook of research in arts education. Dordrecht: Springer; Colwell, R. & Richardson, C. (Eds.) (2002). The new handbook of research on music teaching and learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 5 Lindström, D. (2006). Sjung, sjung för livet! En studie av körsång som pedagogisk verksamhet och av deltagarnas upplevelse av hälsa och livskvalitet. Luleå: Luleå University of Technology. 6 Bierl, A. (2001). Der Chor in der Alten Komödie. Ritual und Performativität (unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusen und der Phalloslieder fr. 851 PMG). (=Beiträge zur Altertumskunde; 126), Leipzig & München: K.G. Saur, 21; Burton, R.W.B. (1980). The chorus in Sophocles‘ tragedies. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1ff. 7 Plato (428–348 BC). The Republic. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html [2014-05-20]. 8 Plato. The Laws. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html [2014-05-20]. 9 Ahlquist, K. (Ed.) (2006). Chorus and Community. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 8.

PART I HISTORIES

CHAPTER ONE LITTLE CITIZENS AND PETITES PATRIES: LEARNING PATRIOTISM THROUGH CHORAL SINGING IN ANTWERP IN THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY JOSEPHINE HOEGAERTS

And in this imposing and magnetic silence, over this wide sea with its frozen waves, upon which a blue shadow, descending softly and full of caresses, throws even more peace and solemnity, fall suddenly from the highest gallery of the tower, where the eyes try in vain to discern the coats of arms, the martial smatterings of trumpets in unison. And the sopranos of the sister cities – Ghent and Bruges – hail and acclaim the Metropolis again and again. Their ever more ardent and strident ‘vivats’ were followed each time by the somewhat raucous call of the band. After this dialogue, the carillon started to chime: slowly and muted at first, like a clutch awakening at dawn in the dew of the thicket; then, getting more animated, raising its voice, suddenly launching a rain of jubilating chords. A sunrise. Then the orchestra and the choirs entered in contention. And it was the apotheosis of Wealth and Art.1

In 1880, naturalist author Georges Eeckhoud included a long description of the performance of Peter Benoit’s ‘Rubenscantate’ in his novel La nouvelle Carthage. Eeckhoud took his time to paint the colorful crowd gathering on the Groenplaats to listen to the newest creation of a man by then celebrated as a local, Flemish and national composer.2 He described the tension and excitement building up before the start of the concert, the powerful effect of the music and its ‘sonorous and hyperbolical common spaces’,3 the carnivalesque outpouring of emotions when the cantata was finished and, in the midst of it all, the composer himself, who he compared with the subjects of great Flemish primitive paintings: a Renaissant reigning triumphant over his own creation – visibly linked with the past, with the city and, next to the statue of Peter Paul Rubens, one of the

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nation’s greats. The composer’s heroic and national stature was underlined by the staging of the cantata, Next to the statue of the great Peter-Paul, the choirs and the orchestra occupy a circular tiered platform, in the center of which the composer is enthroned. The square, cordoned off, is left to the bourgeoisie. The people crowding around it, respect its boundaries.4

A huge number of musicians was assembled on the Groenplaats for the performance of the cantata, but the center around which the performance gravitated was a huge mass of over 1000 choral singers occupying the stage.5 They, rather than the composer who represented mainly his own genius and authority, symbolized the nation to the crowd. Singers had come from across the country to take part in the celebration, and the varied nature of their voices had been consciously employed as a representation of the country’s and the world’s different citizens. The soprani des villes soeurs were recognized as voices from somewhere else, yet related to the Antwerp setting, and it was only after they had been properly heard that the carillon, an instrument that was easily recognizable as a symbol of the region and anchored in the city’s structure, started to play – including young and old in a unison song.6 Then, the carillon will play from all archways, the grey will sing, and the young will dance!7

The cantata described by Eeckhoud was one of many mass choral performances at the end of the nineteenth century in public places throughout Belgian cities. Composed by local maestros, some of whom went on to gain some international fame, yet mainly exclusively Belgian or Flemish heroes, these cantatas were conscious performances of national unity through diversity. The diverse set up of the choirs needed for their performance played a major role in the enactment of this interpretation of unity. The choir, gathering different voices in unison or at least in harmony, was easy to understand as a metaphor for national harmony as well.8 In the next paragraphs, however, I aim to show that musicians and politicians alike took the metaphor of unity through diversity much further by a number of (artistic) strategies that audibly and visibly contrasted different singers. Soloists were separated from the choir, men’s and women’s voices offset each other, children had a particular role to play and even the country’s regions, as Eeckhoud’s description has already shown, were chorally reproduced.9

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In what follows, I will first sketch how (Belgian) nationalism at the end of the nineteenth century was imbued with notions of diversity and dependent on regionalism. Song, and especially collective singing, played an important role in cementing and spreading these notions of regionalism and nationalism. Second, I will zoom in on a number of cantatas that encouraged singers to claim their specific roles and re-enact the nation on stage, focusing mainly on the use of lyrics for different groups of singers and unraveling the cantatas’ discourse. Finally, different participants in the cantatas’ choirs will be compared in order to show how gender, age, and degrees of accomplishment were expressed through singing and employed as acoustic representations of citizenship. In these multifarious reenactments of the nation, it seems that it was not the heroic tenor, nor the male choir, that best symbolized the nation, but rather the soaring sound of treble voices.

L’union fait la force – regionalism, nationalism and pedagogy The concept of unity through diversity plays an important role in Belgian history. Since the nation’s inception in 1830, recurring discussions have surfaced over the country’s unclear, dualistic, identity, and its consequences for its claims to authenticity.10 Like for most, if not all, European nations, the creation of Belgium was a nineteenth-century process of unification through the creation of ‘invented traditions’, national institutions and standardized languages. The national motto, L’union fait la force, in this context, appears as a hopeful discursive device to produce what it claims: national unity despite the obvious differences between the communities occupying the landscape. By the end of the nineteenth century, it became difficult to settle on a definition of the nation in Belgium. Various poetic patriotic texts stress the indissoluble and harmonic character of la patrie, but what the author meant by this fatherland remains to be read from the descriptions he might include of national heroes, sights, landscapes or sometimes from his political leanings. In Antwerp, for example, the nation was often understood to be Flanders, which – rather than betraying any political separatism, denoted the author’s sense of cultural belonging to a nation within a nation.11 This was also largely the way in which the nation was presented in geography manuals in school. In primary schools in particular, the nation was presented as the outer limit of a number of circles in which the children were presumed to feel at home and to which they were to have an emotional attachment. Starting from the home, teachers went on to

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familiarize their pupils with their town, region and finally the nation – to which children were to extend the love they felt to their homes. Simultaneously, they were to imagine the nation as a large mosaic of different regions, in which different people – with their own characteristics – had their homes. Geography manuals enumerated the natural resources and industries of different regions as well, thereby underscoring the nature of the nation as a union of various different landscapes and communities. The familiarity children were to acquire with the nation was therefore not based on ‘sameness’, but rather on the idea that the regional variety was what made Belgium unique. Especially at the end of the century, with the rise of a Flemish cultural consciousness, the dual nature of the country was embraced as its defining feature. Rather than dividing the country, the combination of two ‘races’ (Flemish and Walloon) was represented as that what constituted the nation’s strength. If unity indeed created strength, the unity became stronger precisely because it consisted of two different nations. Rather than teaching abstract notions of nationalism, politics or ideology, teachers sought to create a bond between their charges and the country’s various petites patries. Much like in France, Belgian schools founded their education towards patriotism on the immediate reality of the child. It is about taking the place where the pupil lives as a basis, and developing his love and pride in his petite patrie in order to allow him to then extend these sentiments to the grande patrie.12

Anne-Marie Thiesse defines this petite patrie as a lovable and safe place, an intermediate between family and society within which the individual can grow and develop.13

The definitions of the nation and the pedagogical principles applied in order to forge patriotic love thus intrinsically suppose a process of parallel growth or expansion. As long as children were small and therefore incomplete citizens (that is, without civil rights or duties) they were regarded as inhabitants of their petite patrie. Grown men, performing their duties of citizenship and exerting its rights and privileges inhabited (or even made out) the actual, grande patrie. Whereas knowledge of the nation was acquired mainly in geography and history classes, patriotic education – the teaching of love for one’s country – pervaded all activities inside and sometimes even outside the classroom. Pupils read patriotic stories, visited different parts of the national landscape and sang patriotic songs. The importance of the practice

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of singing within nineteenth-century (patriotic) education can hardly be overestimated. Music became a compulsory part of the curriculum of primary schools in 1879 but school manuals show that music was a part of classroom life long before that. Contemporary proponents of school singing saw numerous advantages to the practice. Singing would ameliorate the children’s health, and especially their lungs, it would allow them to develop a taste for art and aesthetic feeling and, according to a number of experts, would develop their national identity provided the right songs were chosen.14 Singing, it seems, would help children to grow up and become strong, moral and patriotic citizens. Conversely, it would avoid tuberculosis and chase bawdy street songs from their minds.15 Moreover, as children constantly repeated similar songs, the nationalist discourse of many of them would firmly lodge in their vocabulary, and the practice of collectivity through singing in harmony or in unison would become routine. Boys and girls alike sang patriotic songs in their respective classrooms, but the content of explicitly patriotic songs often implied a male singer. Many songs would include a brave and soldierly character figuring as the ‘I’ in the story who protected the fatherland and would be willing to die for it (or for ‘her’, as it was expressed in some texts), thus encouraging boys to play-act as soldiers. However, the actual singing practices of boys in the classroom were less straight-forward than those of girls. Young pupils were all seen as ‘natural’ singers – singing was associated with childhood itself and, through their high-pitched voices, they aligned with the feminine, frivolous side of music. The male teachers in boy schools, on the other hand, were not expected to sing. Despite their presumed professionalism (as opposed to that of women teachers, whose voices were often seen as less strong and dependable), mature men were encouraged to use a violin rather than their voices to teach their pupils to sing.16 While little boys were assuming grown up masculine roles in their singing, they were not lead (or even joined) by an actual mature male voice. Although patriotic songs could be interpreted as a bridge between learned knowledge of the country and the feeling of love for it – thus encouraging the leap from petite patrie to grande patrie, it is less clear how the leap from pre-citizen to full citizenship could be made. As Ian Biddle has suggested, the singing voice has but rarely been a modern male voice, despite the symbolic meaning of the virile voice for the nation.17 And indeed, in the classroom, on the political stage and possibly in the home, the sound of masculinity was one of either silence or of rationalauthoritative speech. Boys’ recurring singing practices seem to have been

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important for an education into this non-musical civil identity, but songs of the classroom do not really show us how.

Re-enacting the nation on stage – regionalism, nationalism and grand performances Outside the classroom, however, young boys did occasionally get a chance to hear – and even share a stage with – mature male voices. By the end of the nineteenth century, public performances of choral music by ad-hoc choirs had become ubiquitous. In the city of Antwerp, these performances were organized regularly for all sorts of celebrations. Their practical organization and their enormous number of participants depended mainly on the multiple links between the city’s liberal (and mainly flamingant) mayor and aldermen, the city schools and the conservatory. The most recognizable and probably most important figure in this network was the aforementioned Peter Benoit. He headed the Antwerp Flemish school of music from 1867 onward and turned it into a Royal conservatory in 1898, created multiple compositions for choir and orchestra for celebrations such as the anniversary of Rubens and established a relation with the city schools. Pupils would be granted the opportunity to take music lessons at the conservatory during school hours, and the city council – which was responsible for the organization of public concerts – could count on the schools to provide young singers as well as mature ones (the teachers) for the performance of cantatas. Moreover, the school teachers would also organize rehearsals for different groups of singers, after which Benoit himself would conduct the actual performance. Benoit was a pivotal figure in the tight-knit community of Antwerp politics, education and music – partly because of his increasing stature as a musician, but also because of his political leanings and involvement. His flamingant ideology, striving for the conservation of Flemish language and culture within the wider circle of a harmonious Belgium, Europe and – ultimately – the world, squared perfectly with the Antwerp elite’s ideas on culture and the state. Moreover, he passed his musical legacy – together with much of his ideology – on to many students who would effectively become his successors. Composers like Jan Blockx, Lodewijk Mortelmans and Edward Keurvels form a recognizable school of artists who created very similar works: like Benoit, calling on the school population to perform their work, and often employing the same librettists who would spread similar messages of continuous ‘flemish’ cultural traditions and patriotism. Members of the city council also continued to take an active interest in music and pedagogy: they were present at the concerts, allowed

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for continued collaboration between schools and conservatory and publicly expressed concern or interest for the teaching of music. In 1904, Antwerp mayor Jan Van Rijswijck addressed his city’s school children with a speech appealing to what he seems to have considered a universal tendency of ‘the people’ to express itself through song. More particularly, he drew his audience’s attention to ‘the folksong, old as history itself’. ‘For the people has always sung of joy or of misery’, Van Rijswijck stated, immediately connecting this seemingly universal observation to local knowledge (referring to an Antwerp proverb that had the ‘little pauper’ singing of ‘poverty and wealth’), and to a history of struggle and pain shared throughout the nation (suggesting the existence of a song of national martyrs).18 The folksong, it appears, was the self-evident binder between a nation and its inhabitants’ emotions. It not only belonged to the people, but also to a long history that, paradoxically, made it seem timeless. The cantatas and their performances, though represented as popular entertainment, were mainly a showcase for the interlocking communities of the city’s elite. They provided a moment of popular education and spread a discourse that the composer, local politicians and pedagogues shared. As public Gesammtkunstwerke, using elaborate mise en scene, features of the city landscape and explicitly emotive music, they could be seen as ideal vehicles for the city council’s liberal ideas on region, nation and citizenship. The composer’s decisions regarding the distribution of vocal parts and orchestrations significantly influenced the effectiveness of the message, but the reproduction of a patriotic discourse as a fatherland consisting of a number of beloved petites patries was first and foremost the lyricists’ responsibility. Poets like Jules De Geyter or Emmanuel Hiel were members of the same social and political circle as the composers, and attempted to create a Flemish literary tradition in which descriptions of the country’s landscape, people, and language were interwoven. Rather than the – now more well-known – highbrow literary products of people like Henry Conscience or Jan Frans Willems,19 these lyrics were consciously kept accessible: not only were they meant to be understood by their often very young singers, they were also supposed to be intoned by massive choirs in the open air. Their message and vocabulary were anything but subtle. Moreover, their content dovetailed with the songs schoolchildren were already familiar with. They contained descriptions of the country they were praising, stressing the beauty of its cities, the quality of its craftsmen, the virtue of its people and the bucolic sights and sounds of its countryside. Albert De Vleeshouwer’s patriotic cantata ‘Peace’, for example, opens with a poetic impression of spring who ‘conjures a shower

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of flowers everywhere’ and in which ‘peace sparkles like gold over cities and land’.20 The land in question is identified by two choirs, each focusing on one part of the country, but also on a different characteristic of the land. The girl choir starts off with a description of ‘the hilly country of the Walloons, where the brook rises from the land’.21 The Walloon country is briefly described as a landscape with its own sounds and sights: ‘the brook bounces and murmurs and sings through solemn woods and valleys’.22 In Flanders, as the boy choir intoned, it is not the ‘brook’ that sings, but rather the people. Living in a ‘delightfully luxuriant garden’ full of riches rather than among the stern pine-trees, the Flemish were to see their homestead as a ‘land filled with song and pure enjoyment’.23 If the assignment of the descriptions of Wallonia and Flanders to – respectively – girl and boy singers was probably random, the further development of the sung story is obviously deliberate: where the girl choir was to sing about domestic peace, the location of a ‘wife with her progeny’, the boys were urged to intone their part on the ‘concord and power’ that were symbolized by the flag martiale ma largamente, underscoring the gendered nature of the two definitions of peace by attaching each to a specific sound that is – later in the cantata – associated with ambient sounds.24 The enforced peace sung by the boys was also ‘brawled’ by ‘source and stream’ and ‘exulted’ by ‘wood and lake’ while, according to the girl choir, peace is whispered, rather than cried out, by the firmament as a ‘holy word’.25 The bipolar organisation of the young singers by De Vleeshouwer – domestic, religious femininity intoned by soft voices and celebrating the whisper on the one hand and public, martial masculinity forcefully and loudly demanding peace on the other hand – is only dissolved at the very end of the cantata, when boys and girls exchange their phrases once and then join tutta la forza in a paean for the ‘dear fatherland’.26 The school cantatas by Jan Blockx and Peter Benoit, written for particularly young voices, show a similar scheme of gendered definitions of spaces, sounds and roles. Making girls sing about mothers and boys about fathers, both composers allotted boys and girls specific and very different places. In Benoit’s cantata ‘Into the world’, the picturesque intro on the beauty of nature locates the girls in ‘mother’s little garden’ and boys in ‘father’s orchard’.27 How different these seemingly similar spaces were imagined becomes clear as the older boys and girls join in the chorus: in ‘father’s orchard’, boys are ostensibly prepared to ‘mow and sow’, to ‘sail the seas, free as eagles’.28 The girls are, by contrast, destined to ‘ornate’ the potential men ‘with happiness, at home’ as their ‘sisters, brides and wives’.29 The young singers are thereby introduced to a

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discourse they will repeat as their voices mature. In ‘The Muse of History’, the mixed choir was split for the patriotic chant at the very end of the cantata to allow women to ‘sing men’s praises’ while the men sung their enjoyment of what ‘flows from their lips’.30 Even if ‘mother’s house’ was associated with silence that was occasionally broken by ‘father’s word’, girls nevertheless sang of ‘mother’s song’, appealing to the audience’s practiced ears that would recognize not only the femininity but also the youth of their voices.31 The dichotomy between female and male voices was often further complicated in the cantatas by role-assignments that suggested an association between the text sung and the singers’ age. In most cases, more serious lines were left to ‘maidens and lads’ instead of the younger ‘girls and boys’, yet the gravity of a text could also be matched by a gravity of tone.32 In ‘Flanders’ grandeur’, excerpts on the ‘threat’ to Flanders’ riches and especially those on the buried heroes of the past were written for altos who were to evoke an air of sadness and maturity – as those who could look back upon the nation’s combative past – with their voices.33 In most cantatas, however, children’s voices were staged as prefigurations of mature voices: girls and boys not only intoned their prospective identity as mothers and brides or fathers and heroes, but also their professional future. Edward Keurvels’ ‘Patriotic children’s cantata’ entitled ‘High tide’ presented a succession of groups – all staged as children of specific professional descent – ringing for the ‘laurel wreath’ that was promised in the cantata’s introduction to ‘band of the most noble sons’ of the country.34 Boys’ voices were used as the sound of labour and battle, impersonating the ‘artisans’ sons’, ‘sailor boys’ and ‘soldier boys’, while girls gave voice to the arts and farming, appearing as ‘artists’ children’ and ‘country-girls’.35 Unlike the boys, who sang as one group for each of their roles, the girls were subdivided in a section of sopranos to sing about ‘beauty’, the undying ‘highest grace’ and a section of altos to exhort the ‘sailor boys’ to ‘sing another tune’.36 Whereas the sopranos acted as a kind of allegorical voice, acoustically impersonating beauty, the altos donned the acoustic garb of the farmer’s wife, stressing not only the prefiguration of their own female voices, but also repeating the familiar discourse of the taciturn, ‘crafty’ and hardworking rural population of Flanders.37 Rather than reflecting a simple, unified, nation, the cantatas presented a differentiated landscape populated with different groups whose gender, age, occupation and regional characteristics could easily be identified.

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Many voiced unison – singers, singing practices and the image of unity This composition of the performing ensemble for the cantatas departs from the more straightforward relations between song and citizenship that seem to have characterized the nineteenth century. On the one hand, choral singing has been interpreted as a producer of collectives, a way to symbolize and enact the togetherness of inhabitants of the nation (while excluding dissenting voices that did not belong to the civil community).38 The male choir in particular has been acting as a shorthand for the voice of the nation – literally consisting of gathered citizens voicing patriotism with similar timbres. On the other hand, the (male) heroic soloist has represented the individual, independent character of modern citizenship. In the Belgian case, François Van Campenhout, the tenor famous for performing the national hymn right after the revolution, is perhaps the most salient example.39 In the cantatas, however, both collectives and individuals were vocally present to intone a discourse of patriotism, and the idea of singing in unison as a way to forge the national collective became much more complicated, as different groups of singers embodied different modes of belonging to the nation – and even modes of belonging to different nations. The careful use of different voices, unison, solos and polyphony complicates our understanding of nineteenth-century patriotism and citizenship, showing that belonging to the nation could take other forms than participation in politics or even the state’s institutions. It also betrays the ambiguous nature of (male) citizenship itself, asserting its individual and independent qualities while also insisting on shared traditions and characteristics of belonging to a homogenous group. This practice aligned with what choirs and schools did with other patriotic songs as well: although composers of patriotic songs wrote a number of solo works for tenor or baritone voices that clearly suggested an identification of the singer as one, autonomous citizen, groups of men or boys would also sing these songs collectively and in unison. In song anthologies this possibility was sometimes suggested by the compiler.40 It seems that individuality could be performed collectively – especially by groups that were supposedly in the process of acquiring (rather than already in possession of) the duties, privileges and most importantly the qualities and habits of the modern citizen (i.e. boys, young soldiers and labourers).41 These practices further underlined the absence of the individual male singing voice as well, and strengthened the notion that the citizen could be acoustically represented through song, but could not sing – unless singing

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was his profession.42 Interestingly, even though male singers were part of the performances of public cantatas, the most visible representations of actual active citizenship were located off-stage: the middle classes were visibly present (and distinguishable from the people), and above all local politicians and dignitaries were there to perform the act of ‘representing’ the nation publicly. Offsetting the sounds of music and celebration, these privileged citizens were eerily silent, acting as detached witnesses to the spectacle. Even if their voices often played a role in public celebrations – most notably by making speeches – their words were later represented as discourse, not as sound. A booklet documenting the celebration of the national day (Vaderlandschfeest), published by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 1905, detailed the roles played by local and national officials during these celebrations.43 Representatives of the government, the army, the city council, the royal family and a delegation of labourers were described as visible and present. Their acts of speaking were mentioned but garnered no more attention. The production of patriotic sounds was left to the multitude, an entity that had been allotted an important role in the cantata composed by Jan Blockx on this occasion, and that was given voice by a large choir of Antwerp singers that travelled to Brussels for the day.44 Rather than creating a soundscape with the ambient sounds of the nation’s nature or topography, Blockx’s cantata presented an acoustic rendition of the nation as people, consisting of men, women and children, the genius of the fatherland and an undefined but important ‘foule’.45 In other cantatas, the mass of choral singers was anything but homogenous, however. For the performance of Benoit’s ‘Muse of History’ in Antwerp in 1880, the organizing committee boasted the participation of 1500 performers, among which were not only the young pupils of the city schools who were to impersonate the ‘Muse’, but also delegations of singers of the different provinces of the country. Each of these groups had its own moment de gloire when they sang ‘their’ verse, describing their home region. The strict separation of voices, not only along lines of gender and age, but also of location, cement the notion that these cantatas were indeed envisioned as soundscapes in which the sound of a particular region could not only be described through musical and textual motives, but was also inherent to the voices of its inhabitants.

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Figure 1: Lay-out of the stage at the performance of Benoit’s ‘Muse of History’, on the Antwerp Groenplaats in 1880.46

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The impression that the cantata presented an echo of the country, acoustically reproducing the spaces it was describing, was heightened by the way in which its performance was staged. The representatives of the different provinces were not only grouped, they also occupied specific places on stage, behind banners with their coat of arms, thus mimicking the geographical interpretation of Belgium as a patchwork of petites patries. The other performers were as carefully positioned: to the left and right of the grand symphonic orchestra, 500 adult singers were to impersonate their own time. On a map of the event, they were marked as the ‘singers of the nineteenth century’. Behind them, higher up on the stage, two children’s choirs and small orchestras surrounded the band, girls on the left and boys on the right side. Between the ‘Muse’, given voice by the pure, quasi-genderless voices of the children, and the adult choir, the drums, cymbals and Theban trumpets were placed, as if to seal off the allegory from the real world. Looking up to the stage, the representations that were offered went from the concrete, local and recognizable, over a grander world-wide scale up to the sphere of legend and abstract universality – following the narrative of the cantata’s lyrics in which first the Belgian provinces were staged, and then the wider world was represented. Three years earlier, a similar choir had even represented the whole world. Unlike the separate choirs in ‘The Muse of History’, that were consciously staging their members’ own gender- and age-defined or local identities, the allegorical figures of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and America were given their voice by the composer. His main concern seems to have been to differentiate between the characters: Europe’s voice consisted of altos and tenors singing in unison, imitating the flow of rivers with a series of crescendos and diminuendos and finally, joined by the basses, picturing the storms of the harsh north. Asia was designated by a very short motive (both in music and text) that was repeated three times by the trebles, the deserts of Africa and the wilds of Australia, ‘where but lost sailors come for thirst and hunger’ were the domain of the lower voices again, who sang slow, repetitive lines against the wild and rhythmic accompaniment of the orchestra.47 Although the Rubens-celebrations were tied to Antwerp and the Groenplaats, the celebrations and the cantata composed for the event could easily be inscribed in a wider, national narrative. Firstly, the painter was imagined as one of Belgium’s (and Flanders’) heroes, an interpretation that was upheld in the cantata itself as well, as the lyrics spoke about an art that belonged not just to Antwerp (part of a sisterhood of cities) but also to a larger entity located in Europe and the world.48 Secondly, it was not just the cantatas’ discourse that tied the Groenplaats

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to a Flemish and Belgian national narrative, but also the multiple performances of cantatas such as the Rubenscantata and ‘The Muse of History’. From the 1880’s up to c.1914, the works were performed in different places, and on different dates in July, thus appearing both in explicitly Flemish contexts (at the celebration of the Battle of the Golden Spurs, on the 11th) and at the occasion of the commemoration of Leopold’s inauguration on the 21st, a date that had gradually gained importance throughout the nineteenth century as a moment of national celebration. Moreover, the cantatas by the Antwerp composers and their colleagues from all over the country fit into the image of the patchwork-nation that was not only taught in the country’s primary schools, but also propagated during these moments of national joy and commemoration. The cheerful July-feasts commemorating the nation’s independence featured representations of a number of separate regions that, together, made up the nation. Historical processions including wagons that represented the different provinces of the country, and locating these regions in a far-away past, suggested a long history of unity-in-diversity for the celebrated nation.49 This narrative of the pseudo-eternal patchwork nation differed radically from the story of hard-gained independence of the early Septemberjubilees in the 1830’s and 40’s. Stressing the (wished for) homogeneity of the nation present, these celebrations had been imagined as memorial services in which the heroes of the Revolution played a central role and everyone’s eyes were on the personifications of a recent and concrete past.50

Conclusion It is perhaps because of this shift that treble voices gained currency in the patriotic repertoire. When representing tangible heroes of a recent past, the mature tenor voice of someone like Van Campenhout was convincing: he could stand in for the revolutionaries because, to a certain extent, he had been one. When symbolizing the nation’s faraway past or its abstract unity, ephemeral children’s voices seemed more appropriate. And when referring to the not-quite-yet citizens of the nation, trebles could be counted upon to voice invented traditions while also referring to modern nationhood and citizenship, as the singing boys could visibly represent the nation’s future men. Children’s ‘silvery’ voices were, according to pedagogues, ideal vehicles for moral messages – they were imagined to be light and sharp and therefore capable to pierce one’s heart.51 For boys, this direct link between their voices and sentimentality was limited to a short period of time – and perhaps therefore so precious: as soon as they

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matured, they would no longer represent notions of citizenship and emotions of patriotism, but rather perform citizenship and act upon their patriotic feelings. Although the act of singing would lose its importance once they hit puberty, musical vocal practices in their younger years would presumably guide boys towards a good practice of citizenship. The cantatas gave them a chance to do just that: they were engaging in the educational and essentially boyish practice of singing, but could also literally practice their future voices by imitating a mature male sound. In Edward Keurvels’ children’s cantata, for example, the boys were to sing ‘heavily and broadly, imitating a man’s voice’.52 Moreover, unlike in the classroom or in a treble choir, the examples of male voices were close to their ears on the ad hoc stage of the cantata, together with the image of silent nonsinging citizenship just off stage. Even though their own performance was the one that was consciously put on show, the theatrical performance of citizenship and masculinity off stage cannot have escaped these boys. As boys openly practiced their future roles, voiced national discourses and aligned themselves visibly with numerous mature male roles (that of the individual genius, the authorative politician or the collective voice of ‘the people’) they and their voices were audibly and visibly engaged in the construction of a collective of citizens. Unlike the ‘maidens’, the regional voices or the solo soprano, these young boys could amalgamate abstract ideals with concrete gendered characteristics: their ephemeral voices were open to whatever ideal the composer sought to project through them, but their bodies already signified future citizenship and autonomy.

Notes 1

Eeckhoud, G. (1888). La nouvelle Carthage. Brussels: Kistemaeckers, 135: ‘Et dans cet imposant et magnétique silence, au-dessus de cette mer étale, aux vagues, figées, sur laquelle l’ombre bleue qui descend doucement, pleine de caresses, met une paix, une solennité de plus, tombèrent tout à coup de la plus haute galerie de la tour, où les yeux essayaient en vain de discerner les hérauts d’armes, quelques martiaux éclats de trompettes à l’unisson. Et les soprani des Villes sœurs – Gand et Bruges – hélèrent et acclamèrent à plusieurs reprises la Métropole. Leurs vivats de plus en plus chauds et stridents, étaient suivis chaque fois des appels un peu rauques de l’aérienne fanfare. Après ce dialogue le carillon se mit à tintinnabuler: d’abord lentement et en sourdine comme une couvée qui s’éveille à l’aube dans la rosée des taillis; puis s’animant, élevant la voix, lançant à la volée une pluie d’accords de jubilation. Un ensoleillement. Alors l’orchestre et les chœurs entrèrent en lice. Et ce fut l’apothéose de la Richesse et des Arts’. 2 Peter Benoit (1834–1901) composed 20 cantatas between 1857 and 1897. His ‘Rubenscantata’ (officially entitled ‘Vlaanderens Kunstroem’ – Flanders’ Artistic

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Fame) was composed for the 300th anniversary of Rubens’ birth and performed on the Antwerp square where the painter’s statue had been erected in 1843. 3 ‘sonores et hyperboliques lieux communs’ 4 Eeckhoud (1888), 134: ‘Près de la statue du grand Pierre-Paul, les choeurs et l’orchèstre occupant une tribune de gradins dispose en arc de cercle au centre duquel trône le compositeur. Le square, ceint de cordeaux, est ménagé aux bourgeois. Le peuple s’écrasant alentour respecte la démarcation’. 5 Benoit, P. & De Geyter, J. (1877). Rubensfeesten 1577–1877. Vlaanderens kunstroem. Cantate op verzoek der stedelijke regeering gedicht door Julius De Geyter, getoonzet door Peter Benoit, uitgevoerd door 1200 zangers en spelers voor Rubens standbeeld op den Groenplaats den zaterdag 18. En den maandag 27. Augusti 1877. Antwerp: J. Dela Montagne. 6 Eeckhoud (1888), 134. 7 ‘Dan zal de beiaard spelen/Van alle torentransen,/Dan zal de grijsheid kweelen,/Dan zal de jonkheid dansen!’. On the role of the carillon in the ‘Rubenscantata’ and in Flemish history more in general, see Beyen, M., Rombouts L. & Vos, S. (Eds.) (2009). De Beiaard. Een politieke geschiedenis. Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven, 109. An exerpt of the ‘Rubenscantata’, including the famous ‘dan zal de beiaard spelen’ performed in 1999 by Koninklijk Filharmonisch Orkest van Vlaanderen and a number of Antwerpchoirs (dir. Grant Llewellyn), can be heard at Peter Benoit/Julius de Geyter – Vlaanderens Kunstroem/Fragment of the Rubens-Cantate (1877), Youtube-clip, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW_DGpBQoaE [2013-08-16]. 8 There has been, as Philip Bohlman has noted, ‘when the moment has arisen to put the European nation on the musical stage […] little doubt who received the role: the chorus’. Bohlman, P. (2004). Music, Nationalism and the Making of the New Europe. New York: Routledge, 71. 9 More generally on cantatas in Flanders, see Ceulemans, A. (2010). Verklankt Verleden.Vlaamse Muziektheaterwerken uit de negentiende eeuw (1830–1914): tekst en representatie. Brussels: Antwerp University Press. 10 The literature on the divided nature of the Belgian nation is vast – but as an introduction to the problem of the nation’s fragmented nature: Tollebeek, J. (1998). “Historical Representation and the Nation-State in Romantic Belgium (1830– 1850)”. The Journal of the History of Ideas 59 (2), 329–353. 11 See e.g. Draye, G. (2009). Laboratoria van de natie. Nederlandse literaire genootschappen in Vlaanderen over politiek, literatuur en identiteit 1830–1914. Nijmegen:Vantilt. 12 Thiesse, A.M. (1997). Ils apprenaient la France. L’exaltation des régions dans le discours patriotique. Paris: éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 8: ‘La réalité immediate de l’enfant. Il s’agit de prendre pour base des connaissances le lieu même habité par l’élève et de développer chez ce dernier l’amour et la fierté de sa petite patrie pour lui permettre d’étendre ensuite ces sentiments à la «grande Patrie»’. 13 Thiesse (1997), 8: ‘un espace aimable et protecteur, intermédiaire entre la famille et la société, au sein duquel l’individu s’épanouit et se développe’.

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H. (1860). “Zingen”. De Toekomst, 247: ‘Onder de probaetste geneesmiddelen voor teere kinderen met gevoelige longen en platte borstkas behoort zingen, mits breede noten, niet buiten één of ten hoogste anderhalf octaef van de natuerlyke stemgrenzen, en by zachte, diepe ademhaling. Een knap muziekmeester, die op eenen goeden voet staet met eenen knappen doktor, behoort onder de kostelyke voor behoeds middleen tegen longteerin’, in a report on primary education inspector Huberti noted that song was of particular interest to form ‘les masses en formation, les enfants’, 21 ‘Enseignement du chant. Rapport de Mr. Huberti: January 24, 1880’. SAA, MA 235/14, Varia. 15 Grégoir, E. (1858). Etudes sur la nécessité d’introduire le chant d’ensemble dans les écoles primaires de la Belgique. Antwerpen: Kennes en Gerrits, 6: ‘fait disparaître les chansons de mauvais goût’. 16 Grégoir, E. (1885). Aanschouwelijk onderwijsder muziek bijzonder ingericht voor lagere scholen, normaalgestichten voor onderwijzers en onderwijzeressen. Antwerpen : Possoz, 5, ‘de vedel’, ‘het speeltuig dat het best in verband staat met de kinderstem’; this vision of the violin mimicking the child’s voice was absent where female teachers were concerned: Grégoir, E. (1852). Le chant en chœur et l’enseignement de la musique dans les écoles primaires de Belgique. Antwerpen: Dela Montagne : ‘Comme la voix de la femme a le même timbre que celle des enfants on pourra se passer du violon dans les écoles normales de filles’. 17 Biddle, I. (2009). “Caught in the Silken Throat: Modernist Investments in the Male Vocal Fetish”. In: Biddle, I. & Gibson, K. (Ed.). Masculinity and Western Musical Practice. Surrey and Burlington: Ashgate, 259–278. 18 “Redevoering uitgesproken door burgemeester Jan Van Rijswijck op het vaderlandsch feest van 21 juli 1904, ingericht door het gemeentebestuur in de handelsbeurs”, Dossiers over de deelname der scholen aan de viering van het Nationaal feest 1901–1908. Held at the Antwerp City Archives: ‘Ik bedoel het volkslied, zoo oud als de geschiedenis. Het volk heeft immer gezongen van vreugde of van smart. Het pooverken zingt zoowel van armoe als van weelde, is een Antwerpsch spreekwoord’. 19 Draye (2009). 20 De Vleeshouwer, A. “Vrede. Vaderlandschecantate”. Held at the Antwerp City Archives: ‘toovert allerwegen een bloemenregen’, ‘vrede ligt in gouden glans op stad en land’. 21 ‘het heuvelig land van de welen, waar ’t beekje den bodem ontspringt’. 22 ‘het beekje huppelt en murmelt en zingt door plechtige bosschen en dalen’. 23 ‘In’t land vor zangen en reine genugten/met schatten op akker en waard/den heerlikenweligen gaard’. 24 ‘een huisje klein, een huisje rein/doch waar een gade met haar kroost/de schoonste bloemen zijn’, ‘Die vlag is het teeken van eendracht en macht’. 25 ‘en vrede, bruisen bron en vloed/en vrede, jubelen woud en meer’, ‘en vrede, fluistren ’t sterrenheer/en vrede, zij het hemelsch woord’. 26 ‘tot heil van 't dierbaar vaderland!’ 27 Benoit, P. & De Geyter, J. (1880). De Wereld In! Schoolcantate. Gedicht door J. De Geyter, getoonzet door Peter Benoit. Gent: J. Vuylsteke: ‘Moeders hofje’ and ‘vaders boomgaard’.

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31

‘En zaaien en maaien zullen wij!/Zeeën bevaren, als arenden vrij’. ‘En wij, uwe zusters, uw bruiden, uw gaden…/wij zullen u thuis met geluk overladen …’. 30 Benoit, P. & De Geyter, J. (1880). De Muze der Geschiedenis, cantate, op verzoek der regeering van Antwerpengedicht door Julius De Geyter, getoonzet door Peter Benoit. Eerste uitvoering op de Groenplaats den 21n Augusti 1880. Antwerp: L. Dela Montagne. 31 Blockx, J. & Melis, H. (1875). Vlaanderens grootheid, Ons vaderland, Gloria patriare Cantate voor meisjes en knapenstemmen. Held at the Antwerp City Archives (Music Collection: MP 82): ‘Moeders huis, hoe stil, hoe vredig’, ‘Daar klonk vaders woord’, ‘En we hooren moeders liedeken’. 32 ‘maagdelijns en knapen’ versus ‘meisjes en jongens’. 33 One of the fragments allotted to the altos (both boys and girls) reads ‘Zij liggen begraven/onder ruischende velden/en de voorjaarswinden/fluistren het loflied der helden’. 34 Keurvels, E. (~1880). “Hooggetij. Vaderlandsche kindercantate”. Held at the Antwerp City Archives (Music Collection: MP 686–768): ‘Het land zal de schaar zijner edelste zonen/helden met rozen en lauweren kronen’. 35 ‘handwerkersjongens’, ‘matroozenjongens’, ‘soldatenjongens’, ‘kunstenaarskinderen’ and ‘boerinnetjes’. 36 ‘Kunstenaarskinderen (meisjessoprano’s): de hoogste gunst!/schoonheid […] die niet sterven zal’, ‘Boerinnetjes (alto’s): een toontje lager zingen/o maatjes van de zee’. 37 ‘olijk’. 38 Bohlman (2004), 39. 39 Verschaffel, T. (1998). “De Brabançonne en De Vlaamse Leeuw”. In: Grijp, L. (Ed.). Nationale hymnen: het Wilhelmus en zijn buren. Nijmegen/Amsterdam: SUN/Meertens Instituut, 162–183. 40 As is, e.g. the case in Moulckers, J. (1905). Receuil de chants patriotiques pour l’école et le foyer des maîtres de l’art musical Belge/Bundel Vaderlandsche zangen van de meesters der Belgische toonkunst voor school en haard. 41 Hurd, M. (2000). “Class, Masculinity, Manners and Mores: Public Space and Public Sphere in Nineteenth Century Europe”. Social Science History 24 (1), 75– 110. 42 This silent citizen is similar to the ‘modest witnesses’ of modern science, see e.g. Haraway, D. (1997). Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan_Me ets_OncoMouse: Feminism and Technoscience, New York: Routledge. 43 Koninkrijk België. Ministerie van Binnenlandsche Zaken en Openbaar Onderwijs (1905). 75e Verjaring van ’s lands onafhankelijkheid. Vaderlandsch feest van 21 juli 1905. Beschrijving van de Plechtigheden op de Poelaertplaats. Brussels. 44 Janssens, J. (2001). De Belgische natie viert. Leuven: Universitaire Pers, 186. 45 Koninkrijk België (1905), 37–47. 46 High up at the back are a girls’ choir and a boys’ choir (each consisting of 300 children) who, together with a small orchestra, personified the muse of history. In front of them are the adults: altoes and basses on the right, tenors and sopranos on 29

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the left, embodying the ‘singers of the nineteenth century’. At the front, small groups of 30 singers represent their respective provinces. The chef d’orchestre and composer Peter Benoit directs the symphonic orchestra and the choirs from his central and elevated position. 47 Benoit & De Geyter (1877), 30: ‘waar slechts verloren schepelingen uit dorst en honger binnendringen’. 48 The cantata was initiatedby ‘zustersteden uit België en Holland’. Benoit & De Geyter (1877), 3. 49 Jannsens, J. (2001). De Belgische natie viert: de Belgische nationale feesten, 1830-1914, 89. See also Verschaffel, T. (1996). “Het verleden tot weinig herleid. De historische optocht als vorm van romantische verbeelding”. In: Tollebeek, J., Ankersmit, F. & Krul, W. (Eds.). Romantiek en historische cultuur. Groningen: Historische Uitgeverij, 297–320. 50 Jannsens (2001), 1–22. 51 Vinckxand, F. & Vinckx, J. (s.d.). Vergeet-mij-nietjes. Liederen voor school en huis in noten en cijferschrift tegen drankmisbruik en dierenmishandeling. Gent: Vanderpoorten, 6: ‘Het matigheidslied zal een snedig wapen zijn in de handen onzer leerlingen – onze kindertjes met hunne reine en zilverige stemmekens zullen het aanheffen, onze knapen en meisjes zullen het herhalen en alzoo zal het lied der bestrijding van alkoolisme van lieverlede tot het huis en het later leven doordringen’. 52 Keurvels (~1880).

CHAPTER TWO ‘ICH BIN NUN GETRÖSTET’: CHORAL COMMUNICATIONS IN EIN DEUTSCHES REQUIEM ANNIKA LINDSKOG

Oh Freunde, nicht diese Töne!1 In his work Listening to Reason, an exploration of the subjectivity of music as a cultural experience, Michael Steinberg rejects the idea that the Requiems of Brahms, Verdi and Dvorak express a national consciousness, on the grounds that they contain ‘voice[s] of a people’, which is ‘crucially distinct from the voice of a nation’.2 Steinberg finds that these works have an ‘internal resistance to ideological posturing’, and that the ‘vocalization’ of the people here remains too subjective and too indistinct to be considered to be representative of a national collective. The religious, or (to Steinberg) the ‘sacred’, community present in these works is not to be equated with a national group, as its main function is to ‘enact the collectivity [it] refer[s] to’, not to evoke an external entity: ‘[n]othing external to the works themselves is being represented [...] nothing external to music is represented’.3 Yet Steinberg also believes musical textures can engage with cultural issues and differences, and tangible links between choral singing and ideologies surrounding a collective ‘people’, whether culturally and/or politically defined, can be found elsewhere.4 In the introduction to a recent study which places choruses as an active, physical reality at the very focus of nineteenth century German musical life and issues around collectivity, nationalism and the people, Ryan Minor for example claims that by the 1840s, ‘choral singing and choral institutions had become one of the markers of an emerging [German] nation’.5 The increased popularity of collective singing – in the mid-nineteenth century, choral singing was one of the three most popular activities together with gymnastics and fencing6

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– was partially a result of a changing cultural arena. As the predominant musical scene moved out of its more restrictive ecclesiastical and court settings and into a wider, secularised sphere, it became more accessible, and offered more opportunities for participating, for the growing and increasingly dominating middle classes. Music-making thus ceased to be an exclusively professional prerogative and resonated with a broader population base, with choral music a particularly relevant example.7 The participatory aspect of nineteenth century music-making is one of its most significant and defining features, and the physical experience of partaking in choral singing represents an activity in which the middle classes ‘saw its collective aspirations embodied and envoiced in the music it itself sang’.8 The Swiss proponent of choral singing, Hans Georg Nägeli, saw before him an age in which ‘humanity itself is taken up in the element of music’ – not least since choral singing, in contrast to, for example, the theatre, was a participative activity, performed by the people themselves.9 Music would ‘belong to the people only by their performance of it’, and musical performances involving the participation of many people must by its very nature, according to Nägeli, be understood as being democratic.10 Already Rousseau had found the human voice particularly well suited to express the democratic ideals of the social contract. Three characteristics of singing underpin his argument: everyone has a voice, a voice has an infinite capacity for modulation, and a voice can ‘elicit a moral response in the listener’.11 Choral music from this period cannot therefore be assumed to be ideologically – or even politically – neutral, and this nineteenth century German context is arguably relevant for Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem. Gundula Kreuzer (among others) asserts that the Bildungsbürgertum had since the eighteenth century increasingly defined their Volk as one that excelled in cultural virtues and products, among which music assumed a key position.12

Further, Ruth Solie establishes music as ‘playing a central role in artistic and cultural life in the nineteenth century, particularly in Germandominated areas’.13 This suggests that both the interrelationship between music and ideological creeds, as well as the political potential of various musical activities, was well understood at the time. According to New Grove II, nowhere was ‘the urge to nationalism stronger than in the German male-voice choral movement’.14 Deathridge goes so far as to suggest that it would probably not be an exaggeration to link the changing nature of the choral movement in Germany ‘from a liberal into a decidedly reactionary force’ in the latter part of nineteenth century at least partially

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to government and police interference.15 Such political potential is perhaps arguably inherent in an activity which regularly saw local groups come together for regional mass gatherings, and which involved physical and embodied togetherness as well as an opportunity to partake in a more spiritually ideological expression. On the opera stage, this ‘acoustical power’ of the chorus, in which the power of the people could ‘make its presence felt by sheer dint of number’16 was also visually portrayed by choruses which often divided into groups to ‘embody conflicting political and social forces’ in the drama.17 And in the ‘age of the Lied’, choral music too was well suited to capture (and take advantage of) Romanticism’s preoccupation with the association of words and music, while benefitting from a general attitude which heard ‘the chorus of human voices’ as the ‘noblest, purest medium of sound’.18 It is within this context that Brahms’ Requiem is situated. Firstly, Brahms was very clearly engaged in contemporary choral activities not only as a composer, but also through conducting his own choral societies. Secondly, in the on-going development of German ‘national’ (or collective) identity, ‘culture’, or cultural traditions, were of defining importance: ‘given the distant and disparate nature of shared political events, [culture] constituted the core of German national identity’.19 Foremost of the cultural constituents were the German language and its literature, with the Lutheran Bible as a central text in the ‘national’ literate canon. The Requiem’s use of texts from this German Bible thus constitutes a significant anchoring in contemporary ideas around the perception of German identity on a textual basis. There is also a connection with another collective identifier, often referred to as Nationalreligiosität, a ‘national’ attitude to spiritual belief which had less to do with the religion itself and more with the tradition it represented and preserved: for German artists and intellectuals ‘Lutheranism became as much a cultural tradition as a system of faith’.20 In addition, Protestant and church music in Germany was also heavily influenced by a reverence for its musical past, and for historical reasons had been closely allied with nationalism.21 In this context, ‘Lutheran’ music becomes conflated with a cultural heritage, and through both its text and musical inspirations the Requiem connects with, and relates to, these ideas and ideals. It would therefore seem possible to suggest that there is a strong connection between the Requiem and its German context. Its ‘Germanness’ lies not solely in the language (as Steinberg suggests), but is an essential aspect of how it relates to its own contemporary context and the concerns alive within and around it.22 It is further precisely by these links with its own community that Brahms’ Requiem reveals the core of its expression

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and its relevance both for that community and for us. In order to hear this, however, we need to engage more closely with how the Requiem communicates its own beliefs, and in a seven-movement work of nearcontinuous choral narration, this must involve paying particular attention to the choral role and expression itself. Such an extensive focus is rarely accorded any chorus in any music. For example, Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, Symphony No. 9, from which the caption at the start of this section derives, is perhaps the most frequently discussed work in the entire Western classical repertoire, and one of its more controversial aspects is arguably the inclusion of the choral voices in the Finale. Yet these voices have traditionally received little attention: the choral presence is continuously being (re-)examined but the choral actions themselves are rarely noted, and while theories and analyses of Schiller’s text and Beethovian intentions abound, the choral interpretations are at best assumed and often simply ignored. There seems to be a tendency to regard the chorus as a nameless, unified collective, led and instructed here first by the baritone solo that begins the section, and subsequently by all soloists. Such a hearing is supported by the baritone’s opening address to his ‘Friends’, an initial choir entry (TB) which simply imitates the soloist’s ‘Freude’, and a first full chorus section which speaks in first person plural and includes references to an ideal collective (‘alle Menschen werden Brüder’). But tracing the choral expression and behaviour as they develop throughout the Finale reveals very little that could be regarded as passive responses to solo actions; rather one could point to numerous passages in which the chorus demonstrates both musical initiative and subjective interpretation of the text. Yet it is assumptions of a choral role which is reactive rather than pro-active, led rather than leading, and collectively pre-defined rather than individually nuanced and responsive that tend to dominate our understanding of the role/s of the choral voices. It is in such hearings that the perceived ‘Germanness’ of Brahms’ Requiem can limit the way in which we might engage with it. Routinely equating the choral voice (and body) with a culturally (pre-)defined collective, risks locking it too tightly to a specific place and time, while trying to remove it from that context, in order to universalise its expressions and interpretations, runs the risk of devaluating some of its inherent relevance. Rather than relying on such external posturing, this analysis will try to hear the Requiem through the voices of those who articulate its meaning, and attempt to reach a conclusion on how such an approach can inform and perhaps expand the ways in which its expression is to be understood.

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Selig sind die da Leid tragen23 Ein deutsches Requiem is scored for orchestra, a single four-part chorus and two soloists. The narration itself consists of a selection of texts from the Bible which may at first seem disjointed, but are in fact linked both thematically and by being primarily the perspectives of poets, psalmists and prophets.24 As such, the main character of the texts could be understood to be that of messages, and it is this emphasis on communication that the chorus channels, creating a dialogue between us and God, but also between us and itself. The chorus sings throughout, while the solo involvement is limited to three of the seven movements (and only in one case for a full movement). There are no duets between the soloists, and neither of them appears without the chorus, thereby reinforcing the chorus’s role as the dominant narrator. The Requiem opens in orchestral F-major, and although it is a major tonality ‘durchsetzt with moll’ (tinged with minor), the mood expressed seems both calm and secure.25 The introductory orchestral modulations over a pedal-f are answered by the opening choral phrase in pp on an upward rising figure in the leading voice (F/A/Bb) to the words ‘Selig sind’ (Blessed are), a motif which will recur at various points in the Requiem.26 This opening phrase is sung a cappella, the only time in the Requiem this occurs (apart from the responding section in movement 7). This seems to place the choral voices at the centre of the work from the very beginning, and to underline their authority. It also serves to emphasise the opening text: ‘Selig sind die da Leid tragen, denn sie sollen getröstet werden’ (Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted). What will eventually emerge as the Requiem’s central message and main concern is thus encased in the first vocal line and emphasised in its initial passage. The ‘Selig’ intervals come back for the next section (‘Die mit Tränen sähen’ (They that sow in tears)) but now reversed in imitation of lamentations. There are further musical illustrations of the text in the sopranos’ long, saddened two-bar melisma on ‘weinen’ (crying) (bb.72– 74), and the flattened notes on the same word in tenors and basses four bars later, while the later expression of rejoicing, ‘und kommen mit Freude’, contain brief, canonical phrases of jollity. On the return to the opening words and a variation of the first passage, the top Ab the sopranos reached on their drawn-out contemplation of ‘Tränen’ (tears) is ‘corrected’ to a bright A as the penultimate phrase now promises comfort, and the movement closes with secure and repeated linear affirmations of ‘getröstet werden’ (sopranos and altos echoed two beats later by the tenors and

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basses in major third harmonies). Together with the mainly homophonic choral writing (with some imitative passages) and the lower, softer sonority of an orchestra with resting violins, trumpets and timpani, the musical expression thus effectively illustrates and emphasises the assurance the text seeks to impart. The second movement opens as a slow and darkly coloured ‘funeral march’ in ATB unison, in a reminder of our mortality (‘Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras’ (For all flesh is as grass)).27 This is followed by and contrasted with a light, sweet passage in which the choral voices seem to address us directly: ‘So seid nun geduldig, liebe Brüder’ (Be patient therefore, brethren). The first person address here underlines the communicative approach, enhanced by the chorus’s musical evocations of the text. After a return to the initial march, the chorus turns to us again, and after a ‘most decisive choral “Aber”’, seems to promise us in the words of Isaiah that those redeemed in God will return (‘Die Erlöseten des Herrn werden wiederkommen’).28 The first of what will be three ‘fugal reassurances’ include an initial choral bass announcement responded to by SAT in broad, homophonic writing; a luscious, long-lined ‘Ewige Freude’ (Everlasting joy) in the tenors accompanied by off-beat ‘shouts’ of ‘Freude’ in the other parts; and a return to the opening text where the entries from all four parts seem to bounce off each other, imitative of jubilant bell-like chimes (bb.269–271). The chorus is here proclaiming an assured belief in a universal promise of deliverance. The address is no longer directed at a specific ‘us’, but the dramatization is still communicative. The choral ‘Schmerz’ und ‘Seufzen’ come with the same musical embodiment as the lightness of the rain earlier in the movement, and both concepts are almost graphically thrown out on the following repeated staccato phrases of ‘wird weg [müssen]’ (bb.261–268). The concluding ‘Ewige Freude’ is delivered with broad choral textures moving steadily upwards on marcato crotchets, secured from underneath by a 30 bar long pedal-f, and the second movement thus closes ‘sieghaft’ (victorious) – a message of, and encouragement to, faith and hope.29 The first singular, personal voice comes with the baritone soloist in the opening of the third movement. His ‘Herr, lehre doch mich’ (Lord, teach me) is an intimate prayer, but through its public, declamatory character it also becomes a lecture. The chorus supports the baritone by repeating his phrases in harmony, but apart from some variations that serve to intensify and dramatise the mood, they add no further material in this first section. As the baritone turns again directly to God, however, asking: ‘Nun, Herr, wes soll ich mich trösten?’ (Now, Lord, who will comfort me), and expressing ‘doubt and anxiety’, the chorus ‘interrupts’ the contemplation.30

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They take up the baritone’s question, repeating it no less than 16 times, but although both Evans and Steinberg hear these choral repetitions as ‘urgent’ and ‘agitated’ respectively, the choral passage itself seems to be of a brighter expression.31 The repeated phrases again chime in on steady, consecutive beats, and with elongated phrases repeatedly spanning large intervals (up to an octave plus a sixth), the passage has more in common with the assured fugue the chorus is building up to than the baritone’s doubt-filled question. Just before the fugue, the chorus stops for ‘a single sentence of transcendent radiance’32 on ‘Ich hoffe auf Dich’ (My hope is in Thee), which on long, rising part-scales builds from a low bass point into a comprehensive, expansive and fully assured choral reply to the anxious baritone. A closing fugal development follows (with separate fugues in the chorus and orchestra), underpinned in the last part by an unusually extensive, oft noted, pedal-d, and again combining to sound forth a secure belief in the redemption and delivery of which the text speaks.

Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen33 The first complete 7-movement performance of the Requiem took place in Leipzig 1869, preceded by a performance of the first three movements in Vienna 1867 and what was then regarded as the first ‘full’ performance in Bremen 1868. In 1868 the Requiem was still without what today is the fifth movement, however, and the uncertainty remains over why this was added so late, including speculations over whether Brahms originally intended to include it or not. But its text appears to be part of Brahms’ original selection, and there seems to be no reason to believe it did not form part of Brahms’ conception of the work from the outset.34 And with the fifth movement in place the preceding fourth movement becomes the symmetrical (and, I would argue, spiritual) centre of the Requiem. ‘Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen’ (How lovely are thy dwellings) is in the key of Eb-major, and as such rather distant from the tonality of the rest of the Requiem (F-major, Bb-minor/major, D-minor/major in preceding movements; G-major, C-minor/major, F-major following). It is however the same key Brahms would later use for his Wiegenlied, op.49, and in a ¾ measure, with a rocking, lulling lilt, the fourth movement might also be heard as seeking to imbue the lullaby’s mood of reassurance.35 ‘The main function of a lullaby’, in Karen Bottge’s definition, ‘is to delineate a safe, pleasurable interior in which to drop into sleep’s oblivion’,36 and she further quotes Deleuze and Guattari on how to achieve such a place:

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Chapter Two A home must be created by drawing a protective circle around that uncertain and fragile centre of our lives.37

The ‘closed circle’ Bottge identifies as essential to Wiegenlied can also be found in the fourth movement in its harmonic stability, in musical phrases (including the thematically leading opening phrase) which continuously and repeatedly return ‘home’, and in an orchestral accompaniment which, scaled-down to almost chamber-like proportions, create a mood of intimacy, security and warmth. That the opening phrase further also employs the ‘Selig’- motif as its starting point (first as a downward figure in the woodwind-led orchestra and then reversed in the chorus), creates a meta-textual link to ideas of (re-)assurance, as it relates the fourth movement to communications of spiritual and emotional safety throughout the Requiem. There is a similar mood in the Shepherds’ farewell in Berlioz’ L’enfance du Christ (1850–54, published 1855). In the same lilting, lulling flow, and with a similarly reduced orchestral sound with strings mainly supporting the vocal lines, and character-defining woodwind introduction and insertions, it creates a very similar hushed calm to the one in the Requiem’s fourth movement. Here too, the address is to a form of divinity – the shepherds that sing to the infant Jesus in Berlioz are paralleled in the first person ‘I’ in communication with ‘Herr Zebaoth’ in Brahms. Both movements seem to express an attitude to the divine presence in which both awe and longing form part of the fundamental belief in the security and peace it represents. It is interesting to note that analyses of Berlioz’ L’enfance hear it as a mixture of dramatic action and philosophical reflection, which the Requiem can be said to parallel, and that both Brahms and Berlioz can be understood to apply a strongly personal approach (rather than an ‘orthodox Christian’ one) in setting spiritual and sacred texts. The two lullabies therefore seem to share an understanding and expression of divine matters as both personal and sacred, and as a presence simultaneously intimately near yet existing in a separate, distant sphere (represented in Berlioz by the long and perilous flight into Egypt the holy family is about to undertake, and in Brahms by the divine dwellings). The text to ‘Wie lieblich’ (from Psalm 84) had been set before, most relevantly perhaps by Schütz, in his Symphoniae sacrae III, and there are some musical parallels, for example the livelier, canonical section of ‘Wir loben Dich’ (We praise Thee). Schütz’ setting, however, is preceded by the mother’s and father’s worry for their son when he has disappeared (‘Sohn, warum hast du uns das getan?’; Luke 2:48–49). The response Jesus gives when they find him is to ask why they were worried: here, in his father’s house, is where he needs to be, where he is at home. This

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passage with which Schütz contextualises his setting (a setting which Brahms would have known) may help to further understand Brahms’ employment of the text as expressing a reverence and longing for a (spiritual) place not of simply utopian or idealised character, but one imbued with certainty and indelible sense of belonging.

Ich will euch trösten38 The following movement, the lately inserted fifth movement, is frequently, indeed routinely, referred to as Brahms’ emotional response to the death of his own mother in 1865. This understanding seems to be derived primarily from three factors: an oft-repeated quote of Clara Schumann’s that ‘we all think he wrote it for her’ (though there is nothing from Brahms himself to verify this), the central text in the movement, which speaks of a first person ‘I’ who will comfort ‘us, like a mother comforts you’; and lastly, perhaps, a predisposition to assume leading roles for soloists (here a soprano solo) when set against choral forces.39 Daniel Beller-McKenna hears the fifth movement’s ‘supremely lyrical promise of comfort [as] in many ways the heart of op.45’, and references discussions of the consolation it contains as too numerous to mention.40 This consolation is often understood to come from the soprano, however. For Steinberg the soprano solo ‘makes explicit the maternal aura, [and] emphasises the tone of intimacy’, and Evans goes as far as to hear the choir as guilelessly interfering, describing the choral ‘re-entries’ as occurring ‘apparently without much concern as to the text’.41 The two narrative voices in this movement, when considered more closely, seem however to break down into an anguished, unsettled and lonely solo voice that sings of sorrow, labour and lament, and a choral voice that repeatedly and insistently, in warm, collective harmonies, with SA and TB often echoing each other in canonical two-part responses, replies with assurances of consolation. The text combines three separate passages, of which the soprano solo sings the first two (from John and the Apocrypha). Her opening ‘Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit’ (And ye now therefore have sorrow) sets her overall mood of lament with a long, laboriously climbing phrase and several repetitions of ‘Traurigkeit’. The following line, though promising a ‘Wiedersehen’ and gladness to come, is conditioned by two preceding ‘Aber’s’. These partially echo the choral ‘Aber’ in movement 2, but whereas that communicated resounding conviction, these are executed on two tritone intervals which reverse each other’s intervals (c-f#/f#-c) and thus create a tense, locked space.

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For the next passage, the soprano abruptly pulls the tonality from Gmajor into a far removed Bb-flat major, only to change again after seven bars to B-major. Here she returns to her opening lines of text, but this time flattens the lead-notes on ‘habe’ and ‘Traurigkeit’ (bb.52 & 58), thus further intensifying the lamenting mood. As she reaches the end of the movement, after sounding increasingly agitated and unsettled, her last phrase lands on an uncertain D (the fifth of the tonic, G-major, bb.76–79). Her continuous attempts at ‘leaving’ this D on a repeated ‘Wiedersehen’ is counteracted by the chorus which keeps the tonality stable underneath, but ‘unfinished’ as her repeated E-to-D figure seems, the orchestra takes it up as a coda, and it is in the end the flutes that in the last three bars will resolve it into the concluding tonic. In contrast, the chorus remains harmonically secure throughout the movement, and repeatedly both steadies and directs the harmonic progression (e.g. in the last bars discussed above). It is also textually persistent – throughout the movement the only choral text are the lines from Isaiah: ‘Ich will euch trösten, wie einen seine Mutter tröstet’ (As one whom his mother comforteth, so I will comfort you). The chorus repeats the word ‘trösten’ in each phrase or part of a phrase they sing and with some choral entries staggered, ‘trösten’ sounds a total of twenty times. The emphasis here is very clearly on comfort and consolation, but the ‘maternal aura’ is harder to pin down, as the textual references are much less frequent, and never occur separately from the thematically leading ‘trösten’ (see fig.1). Figure 1: choral text in movement 5

Key A: I will comfort you a: comfort Aa: will comfort you

Execution A, B, B A, A A, A, a, a, A, A, B, B, A, A/A, A/A, Aa, Aa

B: like a mother comforts one Summary:14 appearances of line A (key word ‘comfort’), whole or fragmented. 4 appearances of line B (key word ‘mother’) If there is anything from within this movement that expresses a maternal reassurance, however, it seems more likely to come from the chorus. As the choral voices insert their stabilising, assertive phrases underneath and between the solo lines, it is easily assumed they are ‘filling the gaps’. In fact they regularly do not wait for the soloist to finish before they sing, and

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it is presumably this that Evans heard as ‘interruptions’. This would be a skewed understanding of the relationship between chorus and soloist however, and one which again presumptively allocates the dominant character to the solo voice. The chorus’ soft but insistent repetitions function instead to reassure and to provide a foil to the agitation, lament and uncertainty contained within the solo line. The individual voice is here soothed by the warm textures of the collective, and as the single voice struggles to imbue her longing for a ‘Wiedersehen’ with faith, it is the chorus that re-asserts the promise of comfort with unequivocal musical security and an unquestionable belief in the possibility of and power in consolation.

Ein Geheimnis42 The sixth movement opens with a 28-bar long ‘trudging’ section, in which the chorus considers the transience of earthly life (‘Denn wir haben hier keine bleibende Statt’ (For here we have no continuing abode)). The limited range of the melodic material, densely, linear harmony, and rhythmically repetitive – almost weary – crotchet beats, all help to characterise a sense of despairing heaviness (underscored also in the orchestra). The chorus sings of longing for a release from this state into the ‘zukünftige’, that which is to come, the long modulating melisma on ‘suchen’ (seek) illustrating their search. This is the first time in the Requiem that the chorus sings as ‘we’, and when the baritone breaks in to interrupt their dispirited reflections with promises of a great secret, his direct address seems for a moment to separate chorus and soloist, just as it does in Beethoven’s Ninth. But as he continues to announce his message (from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 15, the longest consecutive passage quoted in the Requiem), he also reveals himself to be of the same collective: ‘wir werden nicht alle entschlafen, wir werden aber alle verwandelt werden’ (we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed). Further, his first two melodic phrases are both echoed by the orchestra rather than the chorus, which accompanies both with still, reflective chords. Despite the initial similarities with the vocal entry in the Ninth, the relationship between singers, orchestra and audience here is of a different kind. The solo voice emerging out of the texture serves to highlight a textual aspect, rather than a hierarchical division between the different voices, and both the choral and baritonal ‘we’ reach out beyond the performative space, and break down the boundaries between performers and the performed-for as they draw us into their narration.

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The chorus and baritone jointly announce that the last trumpets shall sound, then alternate the subsequent narration between them, until the chorus takes it over for the last section, ‘Der Tod ist verschlungen in den Sieg’ (Death is swallowed up in victory; b.127 ff). Here the chorus finally addresses death directly through repeated challenges to its presumed power: the rhetorical questioning of death’s sting and hell’s victory (‘Tod, wo ist dein Stachel? Hölle, wo ist dein Sieg?’) in repeated phrases which SA and TB alternately pass between them in closely interweaving, interlocking intervals, taunts death with their powerful musical assertion and domination. The unflinching conviction of the ultimate powerlessness of both death and hell ends in a triumphant, blazing, bright C-major chord, out of which emerges the final thanks-giving: ‘Herr, du bist würdig zu nehmen Preis und Ehre und Kraft’ (Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power). The final fugal theme starts on the reversal of the initial ‘Selig’-theme, then elongates into denser choral textures, and finishes with homophonic choral cadenzas very closely reminiscent of Bach’s chorale writing. The sixth movement is thus the most narrative in the entire Requiem, and that which has the greatest variation of expression and drama in the chorus. From the heavy, monotonous trudge in the opening section, to the hushed contemplation of the baritone’s revelation, and from the triumphant banishment of the power of death to the jubilant, fugal thanksgiving, the choral voice both epitomises and narrates ‘den Gipfelpunkt des ganzen Werkes’.43 The sixth movement communicates its message more directly than any other part of the Requiem, and as it acts out a response to death in which the perceived finality loses its ultimate power, and as the triumphant final C-major fugue prepares to bring the tonality back to Fmajor, the seventh and last movement can finally turn to, and be for, the dead.

Selig sind die Toten44 The seventh movement, like the first, opens on the word ‘Selig’, but here the sopranos intone it first on their own, on a long, high, shimmering F, as if floating above us, and thus establishing a different perspective from the first movement. Beneath the warm, expansive soprano line (its first downward half-arch combining closely related elements from the opening of the fourth movement and the initial ‘selig’-motif to a new thematic variation), the orchestra works steadily upwards in a gently rising scale. Such upward figures (in both orchestra and chorus), and long expansive single-part lines in the choral voices recur throughout and are central features for this

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movement. They underline that it is a more ‘individualistic’ chorus we find in this last movement than in the rest of the Requiem. There is overall less of the homophonic writing that dominated the parallel first movement, and the four choral ‘voices’ (SATB) are instead more frequently appearing with separate, soloistic lines, an entry of a new phrase often initiated by a single voice-part a beat or two ahead of – or behind – the others, or with various, different pairings of the voices (for example bb.76–89: AB’s first statement answered by SAT, then repeated by B only, subsequently responded to with a new theme first by SA and then echoed in TB). In the middle section the chorus creates an ‘ungetheilte Andacht’ (low, unison ATB, supported only by low brass and anticipated by the warm sonority of the introductory woodwinds) as they announce the message from the Spirit: ‘dass sie ruhen’ (that they may rest). The choral articulation of this final communication is accompanied by rocking, lulling strings, and the Requiem’s final movement thus speak both textually and musically of eternal rest and peace. At the very end, the harps re-enter (b.158). The chorus’ final ‘Selig’ is tonally identical to the ‘getröstet’ that concluded the first movement, as the promise set out by that movement, that we will be comforted, has now been fulfilled.45 But as the harps’ arpeggios soar ever higher upwards over the chorus’ last, descending phrase, rising with those we have lost, the chorus stays down with us. To the end, the Requiem remains a requiem not for the dead, but for the living.

Getröstet werden Ich bin nun getröstet! Ich habe das überwunden, was ich glaubte, nie überwinden zu können [...] Ich habe nun meine Trauer niedergelegt und sie ist mir genommen; ich habe meine Trauermusik vollendet als Seligpreisung der Leidtragenden. Ich habe nun Trost gefunden.46

The inspiration for the Requiem is often argued, to varying degrees, to be either or both the death of Schumann 1856 and Brahms’ mother 1865. It is entirely logical to assume that personal experiences of loss, the concomitant emotions and the possible reflections over life and death they would bring, are part of the Requiem’s make up, expression and outlook. Yet we need to be careful not to make it relevant for only one or two people, or our experience of it conditioned by our perceptions of Brahms’ relationship with either of them. ‘Alles das ist denkbar, letztendlich belegbar ist es nicht’,47 writes Bolin about the recurrent attempts to link the Requiem to specific and limited events and people (including a breakup of a relationship and threatening war-fare), drawing attention to how

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perilous and partial an interpretation which takes as its starting point such assumptions would be.48 The choral narration of Brahms’ careful selection of passages from the Lutheran Bible is a meeting point for a personal contemplation of sorrow, loss and hope on the one hand, and a universal and collective exploration of doubt, assurance and joy on the other. The deliberate (and later expressively defended) exclusion of Christ or John 3:16, which for Carl Reinthaler was the Requiem’s one significant short-coming,49 points to Brahms’ use of sacred texts not as absolute doctrine but as poetic sources with which to ‘probe philosophical issues, and to question the nature of life and the human condition’.50 But at the same time as the Requiem in this way then is a private reflection and search for understanding, it is also unavoidably and deliberately public, not least since it is in its very format intended for large-scale performances in communal, public places. For Lutheranism however, the collective (or a collective experience) does not come with a conditional surrender of the individual (or the individual experience), nor does the individual reject completely the notion of the collective. It carries, rather, a heightened importance of, or focus on, the individual at the expense only of what might be termed ‘organized religion’ – for Lutheranism the need for a community, a group in which to be anchored and to which to belong is still relevant, but the shape and substance of that group is not directed by a collective body, only by the individual desire or need to belong to such a group.51 The Requiem’s communal function can therefore be understood not just by its use of text and language, but also by the connections its very format forges. It resists the traditional liturgical setting of the requiem mass, but is at home both in the concert hall or in a church venue (on both larger and smaller scales), and as such may be understood as being more accessible, and relevant, to a broader audience. Deathridge identifies ‘[its] sublime choral writing’ as being ‘not as distant from the vocal style of worthy local singing associations as it might seem today’52, and although in no way an easy or undemanding piece in the choral repertoire, its fourpart (only) harmonies within a standard register and ultimately very singable lines make it possible for a broad spectrum of singers, professional or amateur, to engage with.53 The Requiem thus becomes simultaneously relevant to a specific, but also relatively broad, audience, and a musical experience in which partaking could be either from within or without, either as communally spiritual or individually contemplative, and in which individual levels of musical ability could be contained. The ‘well-known’ chorale that Brahms claims to have hidden within the Requiem underlines this link to its local community further.54 This

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musical inter-reference often tends to be regarded primarily in technical terms and as symbolic – a clever technique to pay tribute to a preceding generation of German traditions. But as such it also has a very practical function: it is representative of a local musical heritage, and one expressed through collective singing. It therefore points to the embeddedness of local culture within the Requiem and to its desire to be not just for its own people but also of them: inspired by its local audience and their own cultural heritage and practices, the Requiem also seeks to connect with that audience, to give them ways of recognising themselves in it, and to make it relevant for them.55 The hidden chorale is therefore less significant as an intellectual link to a musical heritage, or an expression of some Brahmsian nostalgic recycling of past projects, imbued with heavy connotations, but emphasises rather the communal collectiveness rooted in a (spiritual) tradition of singing together, an emphasis on the chorus as collective experience, a joint tradition, and a short-hand for a shared emotional and spiritual depository. This is how the Requiem in its situadedness becomes a requiem not primarily for the dead, but for the living. Its Begriffsgefüge of ‘Trost und Tröstung’ are expressed not only through its textual and musical material, and are not primarily or predominantly found in the fifth movement (which the quote by Floros refers to) – and is specifically not articulated by the soloists.56 It is instead embodied in a collective experience, sprung from its deeply rooted cultural connotations, and communicated through the choral voice. At the same time as the chorus channels for us the divine voice of Beatitudes, of promises, hope and comfort, the simultaneously individual and collective choral voices also explore our concomitant emotions of sorrow, fear and hope, and our longing for reassurance. Through them we too can face death, but with them – and by them – we can also find strength, solace and solidarity. They carry forth the power of the music itself to heal and to sooth, but also to express and explore emotions for which words alone are a limited resource. The dichotomy surrounding Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem is often dominated by a polarisation of on the one hand its ‘Germanness’, and on the other its capacity for universal relevance, often seeming to necessitate hearings that achieve the latter only by excluding the former. Opening up the interpretative hearings of nineteenth-century choral music to include a range of possible communications and concerns might be a way of situating it closer to its historical context and at the same time allow it to speak with multifarious voices. The choral voice functions here not as a collective voice of a specific, historic and pre-defined conglomerate steeped in nineteenth-century German rhetoric, but as communicator of the

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Requiem’s main narrative: that of finding and imparting comfort and consolation in the face of loss and desolation, and perhaps to speak to us all of ‘the ephemeral nature of earthly things and the hope for something beyond’.57 It brings with it a myriad of voices and expressions, and through its context, it remains both culturally specific and of cosmic relevance. By allowing the choral voices to speak with all their multifaceted nuances, emphases and expressions we may be able to hear Ein deutsches Requiem as both German and human, both culturally anchored and universal, and as of both personal and collective relevance.

Notes 1

Oh friends, not these sounds! Steinberg, M.P. (2004). Listening to Reason. Culture, Subjectivity and Nineteenth-Century Music. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 163. 3 Steinberg (2004), 166–167. 4 Steinberg (2004), xi. 5 Minor, R. (2012). Choral Fantasies: music, festivity and nationhood in nineteenth-century Germany. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 3. 6 Mosse, G.L. (1975). The nationalization of the masses. Political symbolism and mass movement in Germany from the Napoleonic wars through the Third Reich. New York: H. Fertig, 127. 7 Smith & Young point for example to the symphonic choirs: as they grew larger, more amateur singers were increasingly needed to fill them. Smith, J.G & Young, P.M (2001). “Chorus (i), §4: From the mid-18th century to the later 19th”. In: Sadie, S. (Ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol.5. London/New York: Macmillan Publishers, 777. 8 Minor (2012), 1. 9 Quoted in Minor (2012), 1. 10 Minor (2012), 1; Smith & Young (2001), 77. 11 See Simon, J. (2004). “Singing Democracy: Music and Politics in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Thought”. Journal of the History of Ideas 65 (3), 447–450. 12 Kreuzer. G. (2005). “‘Oper im Kirchengewande’? Verdi’s Requiem and the Anxieties of the Young German Empire”. Journal of the American Musicological Society 58 (2), 400–401. See also Applegate, C. (1998), “How German is it? Nationalism and the Idea of Serious Music in the Early Nineteenth Century” in 19th-Century Music 21 (3), 274–296, and Applegate, C. & Potter, D. (Eds) (2002). Music and German National Identity. University of Chicago Press. 13 Solie, R.A. (2004). Music in other words. Berkeley/London: University of California Press. (California studies in 19th century music; 12), 5. 14 Smith & Young (2001), 777. For more on German “Männerchöre”, see for example Brinkman, J.M. (1970). “The German Male Chorus of the Early Nineteenth Century”. Journal of Research in Music Education 18 (1), and Brusniak, F. & 2

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Klenke, D. (Eds.) (1995). “Heil deutschem Wort und Sang!” Nationalidentität und Gesangskultur in der deutschen Geschichte - Tagungsbericht Feuchtwangen 1994. Augsburg: Wißner; see also Applegate & Potter (2002), in particular their chapter ‘Germans as the “People of Music”: Genealogy of an Identity’, 1-35, especially 17-18. 15 Deathridge, J. (1991). “Germany: the ‘Special Path’”. In: Samson, J. (Ed). The Late Romantic Era: from the mid-nineteenth century to World War I. London: Macmillan Press., in particular 59. 16 Parakilas, J. (1992). “Political Representation and the Chorus in NineteenthCentury Opera”. 19th-Century Music 16 (2), 197. 17 Ibid. See also Engelhardt, M. (1997). “‘Something’s Been Done to Make Room for Choruses’: Choral Conception and Choral Construction in Luisa Miller”. In Chusid, M. (Ed.). Verdi’s Middle Period, 1849-1859. Source Studies, Analysis, and Performance Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 18 Contemporary comment on Brahms’ Fest- und Gedänksprüche (op.109), quoted in Minor (2006), 284. 19 Hewitson, M. (2000). “Nation and Nationalismus: representation and national identity in Imperial Germany”. In Fulbrook, M. & Swales, M. (Eds.). Representing the German Nation: history and identity in twentieth century Germany. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 114. 20 Beller-Mackenna, D. (2004). Brahms and the German Spirit. Cambridge Mass./London: Harvard University Press, 32. 21 Smith & Young (2001), 777. 22 Steinberg, M.P. (2005). Choral Masterworks: A listener’s guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 70. 23 ‘Blessed are they that mourn’. 24 For further discussion of the textual aspects, see for example Minear (1987). 25 Floros, C. (2004). “Vergänglichkeit, Tröstung und Hoffnung als semantische Felder bei Johannes Brahms”. In: Bolin, N (Ed.). Johannes Brahms, Ein deutsches Requiem: Vorträge, Europäisches Musikfest, Stuttgart 2003. Kassel; London: Bärenreiter, 45. 26 See for example Steinberg (2005), 71 ff. 27 See Reynolds. C. (1985). “A Choral Symphony by Brahms?”. 19th-Century Music 9 (1), 8-12 for identification of material for this movement in earlier compositional attempts by Brahms and works by Schumann. 28 Minor also discusses a homophonic “Aber” in Op.109 as an expression of a choir that ‘ha[s] something more to add’, and suggests a similarity with the “Aber” in movm.2 of op.45; Minor (2006), 281. 29 Floros (2004), 48. 30 Beller-McKenna (2004), 66. 31 Evans, E. (1912). Historical, descriptive & analytical account of the entire works of Johannes Brahms. Vol.1 – The Vocal Works. London: WM. Reeves; Steinberg (2005). 32 Steinberg (2005), 73. 33 ‘How lovely are Thy dwellings’.

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34 The text-sheet is reproduced in Musgrave, M. (1996). Brahms: A German Requiem. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 11, and a discussion around the creation of the fifth movement on 9-13. 35 Although completed after the Requiem, the Wiegenlied seem to have started life at an earlier stage. See Bottge, K.M. (2005). “Brahms’s ‘Wiegenlied’ and the Maternal Voice”. 19th-Century Music 28 (3), 185-213. 36 Bottge (2005), 205. 37 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, 1837; quoted in Bottge (2005), 205. 38 ‘I will comfort you’. 39 Musgrave also quotes Florence May, who claims Brahms told Hermann Deiters that he had thought of his mother when writing the movement; Musgrave (1996), 9. The uncertainty surrounding these claims is evident. 40 Beller-Mackenna, D. (2005). “Distance and Disembodiment: Harps, Horns, and the Requiem Idea in Schumann and Brahms”. The Journal of Musicology 22 (1), 87. 41 Steinberg (2004), 174; Evans (1912), 178. 42 ‘A secret’. 43 ‘the pinnacle of the entire work’, Adolph Schubring, 1869; quoted in Horstmann, A. (1986). Untersuchungen zur Brahms-Rezeption der Jahre 1860-1880. Hamburg: Wagner, 134. 44 ‘Blessed are the dead’. 45 In the words of contemporary reviewer Maczewski: ‘In den Worten “Selig sind die Todten” sei die Seligkeit zur “Wahrheit” geworden’ (In the words “Blessed are the dead”, the blessedness has become truth). From the ‘most extensive and technically knowledgeable’ of contemporary reviews, by A. Maczewski in 1870, quoted in Horstmann (1986), 152. 46 ‘I have now found consolation. I have overcome that which I believed never to overcome [...] I have now laid down my sorrows and they have been taken from me: I have completed my music of mourning as a beatitude of bereavement. I have now found comfort’. Brahms in a draft letter after completing the Requiem (dated as 1868 and 1869). Quoted in Bolin, N. (2004). “Das Problem: Ein deutsches Requiem Op.45”. In: Bolin, N (Ed.). Johannes Brahms, Ein deutsches Requiem: Vorträge, Europäisches Musikfest, Stuttgart 2003. Kassel; London: Bärenreiter, 35. 47 ‘Everything is possible, but in the end impossible to prove’. Bolin (2004), 33. 48 See for example Steinberg (2005), 69. 49 Reinthaler was preparing the chorus for the 1868 performance in Bremen on Good Friday, and found the ‘lack’ of the ‘point on which everything revolves, namely the redeeming death of the Lord’ made it less ‘suitable’. It is in the response to this letter that Brahms suggests the ‘Deutsch’ in the Requiem’s title could equally well have been ‘Menschen’. As Beller-Mackenna points out, Brahms’ response does not actually answer Reinthaler’s question as put. Letter quoted in translation in Beller-Mackenna, D. (1998). “How deutsch a Requiem? Absolute Music, Universality, and the Reception of Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, op.45”. 19th-Century Music 22 (1), 3-19.

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Beller-Mackenna (2004), 34. Contemporary reviewers also generally heard Brahms’ ‘freeing himself from any specific Kultus [and] reflecting a modern form of faith’; see Beller-Mackenna (1998), 10. 51 See Beller-Mackenna (1998), in particular 12-14. 52 Deathridge (1991), 59. 53 Brahms was however under no illusions about the standard, quality and musicianship needed for a choral force to perform the Requiem well. Nick Strimple quotes a letter (in translation) which Brahms sent in reply regarding a planned performance in Hamburg [year not given]. The suggested choir was in his view not up to the task and he urged reconsideration: ‘The planned perf. makes sense only if it is an especially good one; heading the list for that is the choral group’. After stating his preference for which to chose, he also suggests as second choice the combined theatre choruses of Hamburg and Schwerin – but adds that it is really quite a lot to ask of them, to practise, in addition to their other tasks, ‘so difficult a piece’. Quoted in Strimple, N. (2008). Choral Music in the 19th century. Milwaukee: Amadeus, 63–64. 54 For discussions of both character and whereabouts of this chorale, see for example Reynolds (1985), 11ff. 55 Minor writes similarly about Fest- und Gedänksprüche, which Brahms had initially also considered prefacing with “German”, as this would, Minor suggests, have encouraged the audience to understand them as being ‘not only about them, but of and from them as well’; Minor (2006), 271. 56 [Its] ‘conceptual structures are [built around] comfort and consolation’. Floros (2004), 52. 57 E. Hanslick in 1867, reproduced in Frisch, W. & Karnes, K.C. (Eds.) (2009). Brahms and his world. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 224.

CHAPTER THREE THE TAPIOLA CHOIR AND FINNISHNESS: NATIONALISM AND THE INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC IN FINLAND LAUREN HOLMES FRANKEL

Introduction In Finland, music and nationalism have had a long and well-established relationship. Jean Sibelius is one of the most prominent of the composers commonly associated with 19th-century nationalist movements in Europe, and his music’s role in Finland’s drive toward independence – and its enduring role in Finnish identity today – has been widely studied.1 Since Finland’s independence, achieved in 1917, music has remained an important method of promoting images and ideas of suomalaisuus, or Finnishness. During the second half of the 20th century, contemporary music emerged as one of Finland’s most successful cultural exports. Since the 1960s, Finland has produced a significant number of internationally recognized composers, conductors, and performers, at a rate seemingly out of proportion to its population of roughly five million. Contemporary art music has played a significant role in Finland’s cultural profile, both domestically and abroad, due in large part to the elaborate infrastructure of institutions that support it and to the government funding that this infrastructure has enjoyed. Just as Sibelius’s compositions helped to create the idea of a Finnish nation, works by composers such as Aulis Sallinen, Joonas Kokkonen, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Magnus Lindberg, Kaija Saariaho, and many others helped to maintain the identity of the nation during the political turmoil of the 20th century – from Finland’s narrow avoidance of absorption into the Soviet Union during World

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War II, through its politically precarious position during the Cold War, to its accession to the European Union in 1995. Looking more closely at the individual musical institutions that have participated in the composition, performance, and promotion of Finnish works allows us to examine the ways in which nationalism affected not only the style, but also the production of 20th-century music. This essay uses one such institution, the Tapiola Choir, as a case study of the interactions between government policy, institutional ideology, and individual experience in producing a 20th-century Finnish national identity through music. Through Finland and the Tapiola Choir – through the values, ideas, ideologies, and personal experiences of those who worked with and within the choir – we can learn more about the cultural and national processes of creating new music.2

The Tapiola Choir The Tapiola Choir is a mixed-voice children’s choir, founded in 1963 by Erkki Pohjola, who conducted it until his retirement in 1994. After winning the BCC’s Let the Peoples Sing competition in 1971, the choir achieved both domestic and international success, becoming one of Finland’s most influential and well-traveled choirs. During Pohjola’s time as director, the choir released thirteen recordings and visited many more countries. Since winning the BBC’s competition with Aglepta, written by the Swedish composer Arne Mellnäs in 1969, the choir has specialized in singing technically demanding contemporary music. Pohjola placed a particular emphasis on commissioning and performing Finnish pieces, and as a result the Tapiola Choir has worked closely with nearly all of the leading Finnish composers of the 20th century, including Erik Bergman, Aulis Sallinen, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Olli Kortekangas, and Kaija Saariaho. Although it began as a school choir in Espoo, a suburb of Helsinki, the choir soon became an independent entity. During the 1970s and 80s, prior to Finland’s financial recession following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the group regularly received large travel grants from Finland’s Ministry of Education, and in 1983 it received a permanent grant for its support from the city of Espoo. These grants allowed the choir to tour extensively, including several trips that took the children all the way around the world and some that made headlines back home in Finland. Despite the increasingly far-reaching activities of the choir, its administrative staff remained quite small throughout this period, usually comprising only an artistic director/conductor, an office manager, a treasurer, and various chaperones, nurses, and vocal coaches. In 1996, the Tapiola Choir’s influence

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on the international world of choral music was recognized by a UNESCO prize for the Promotion of the Arts. Its emphasis on performing new works, recognition within Finland, and role as an ambassador of Finnish culture abroad make the Tapiola Choir a valuable example for the purposes of this study. There are many interesting perspectives from which we can examine the work of an organization like the Tapiola Choir. In this essay, I combine both ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’ approaches, looking at three elements of its multilayered functions: Its relationship to the Finnish government’s goals, the ideologies underpinning the choir as an organization, and the personal experiences of the singers themselves. To do so, I use government documents, materials from the choir’s archives, and survey responses from and interviews with former choir members. Taken together, each of these three perspectives contributes to an understanding of the choir’s activities and influence as an artistic institution.

The State Art Committee To begin discussing the first of these elements, some background on the Finnish government’s arts policies is necessary. At the end of 1964, the year after the Tapiola Choir was founded, Finland’s President Urho Kekkonen announced that the existing Academy of Finland would be dissolved and a new system for supporting the arts would be established. The State Arts Committee, which consisted of both politicians and members of the artistic community, was formed to consult on methods of funding the arts. After deliberations that included hearing expert testimony from artists and contacting the Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish Ministries of Education, the committee presented its findings in 1965. On the basis of this report, Parliament passed the Promotion of the Arts Act in 1967, which established the system of Arts Councils that still operates in conjunction with Finland’s Ministry of Education today. The State Art Committee report of 1965 contained a detailed assessment of the state’s current support for each area of the arts, as well as proposals for reform. As influential as these legislative proposals were, however, the most revealing passages are the document’s statements on the current status and significance of art. In these, the committee provided its rationalization of the necessity and value of art for the nation – in other words, the reasons why the state should support art. The language used in these statements provides insight into the ideas underlying the committee’s proposals, and thus much of Finnish cultural policy. Understanding a government’s ideological approach to the arts is

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vital to understanding the framework within which that country’s artistic production occurs. A government’s stated goals for artistic funding naturally influence the language of those who seek that funding, and therefore play a crucial role in developing the way the value of art is framed, understood, and justified within a culture. The Finnish committee’s report presented the claim that ‘art performs a social function by being art,’ which stood in stark, perhaps deliberate, contrast to the USSR’s famous policy of Socialist realism, which used art to promote a specific political system.3 The committee also defined artistic culture as intrinsic to nationhood. The most telling and significant statement of art’s purpose, however, occurs in the introduction to the new system’s objectives: Art is part of contemporary society’s cultural life. It is a necessary and indispensable expression of a nation’s existence and is entitled to receive, consistent with this, an established status and society’s support. Its status and the support given to it must not be allowed to depend on economic trends nor on private interests. […] There should be no question, of course, of shackling the development of the arts according to government guidelines. Rather, the basic view should be adopted that the government should feel an obligation for the creation of conditions that support the continuing favorable development of art, from the basis of its traditional freedom.4

In other words, the State Arts Committee explicitly declared that art should be valued primarily for its nation-building qualities. If art is a necessary expression of the existence of a nation, then without its own artistic culture, a nation must fail to exist. A political entity, one assumes, may remain – but this attitude suggests that without a strong, unique culture, it cannot be a true nation. In this formulation, art therefore not only supports a Finnish cultural identity, but the conceptual existence of Finland itself. The act of creation, of artistic production, itself was thus framed as a nationalistic project, even aside from artistic style, content, form, or message. These were the official ideas about art, including music, that were current during the foundational years of the Tapiola Choir.

The Four Pillars Given this official position, how can we relate these ideas – the importance of music as a creative process, arising from a need to establish, support, and promote Finnish culture – to the Tapiola Choir? What

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methods can we use to investigate the ideologies underlying the history of the choir? One method is to look at the writings of its founder, Erkki Pohjola. As the Tapiola Choir’s artistic and administrative leader for the first three decades of its existence, Pohjola shaped all aspects of the choir’s operation. Pohjola was the first music educator in a family of professional musicians, with no previous experience with choral conducting before he founded the choir at the Tapiola Secondary School in Espoo. In the summer of 1964, he attended workshops with both Zoltán Kodály and Carl Orff, two of the most influential figures in music education in the 20th century. Pohjola was particularly impressed by Kodály’s work with mixed-gender children’s choirs in Hungary, a recent innovation on the more traditional sound of the boy choir, and it was at this point that he resolved to create his own Finnish version of what he called this ‘new instrument’. During his time as conductor, and particularly after his retirement in 1994, Pohjola became a highly sought-after lecturer. He traveled frequently to choral conferences, festivals, and competitions around the world, speaking on his work with the choir, until his death in 2009. He gave many versions of the same few basic lectures, revising them frequently over the years, usually under the title ‘Children’s Choir: A New Artistic Instrument’. Through these lectures, Pohjola developed his ideas about the purpose of the Tapiola Choir. It was in this material, which formed the basis of his 1992 book Tapiola Sound, that he first laid out the four principles, or pillars, that he felt formed the foundation of the choir’s success. This essay primarily references a version of the talk given in 1990, as well as Pohjola’s book. Although it is important to note that he did not begin with these principles already formulated, nor typically discuss them with the choir members themselves, he nevertheless did use them to represent the choir to the world, and thus they offer the clearest vision of its institutional mission. Pohjola’s four ‘pillars’ were as follows: 1) The ideal of a sound sprung out of our own Finnish background; 2) A versatile combination of singing and instrumental music; 3) The collaboration with the composers of our time; 4) The promotion of international aims: songs building bridges.5

The First Pillar: A Shared Finnish Background Pohjola’s first principle, the ideal of a sound based on a shared Finnish background, originated in an attempt to explain the choir’s unique timbre,

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which had become known as ‘the Tapiola sound’, but is also explicitly related both to Finnish culture and to the Finnish language. In his lectures, Pohjola described the components of the choir’s sound as ‘the Finnish language, the Finnish song tradition, and the aim to a natural tone production’.6 In his book he made the connection to language clearer by suggesting that attempting to imitate the choir’s sound ‘would certainly be a waste of effort anywhere that did not have the same Finnish mothertongue and cultural legacy’.7 In other words, the consonants and vowel sounds inherent in Finnish influenced the singers’ natural intonation, producing the ‘Tapiola sound’. This emphasis on the Finnish language has inherently strong nationalistic connotations. Because of the language debates and the struggle for dominance between Finnish and Swedish during Finland’s national awakening at the end of the 19th century, language remains particularly closely tied to issues of Finnish identity today. This pillar, then, can be interpreted as a nationalistic statement: the choir’s Finnishness is central to its success. It does not, however, suggest that the choir is meant to promote Finnish culture – only that it is grounded within it. There is a parallel between this construction of the choir’s relationship to Finnishness, and the State Arts Committee’s construction of Finland’s relationship to art. Just as art is seen as necessary for the existence of a nation, the existence of a shared nationality is seen as necessary for the choir – which then, in turn, produces art. In this sense, the Tapiola Choir and the state form two parts of a symbiotic production of Finnish national identity, with each half depending on the other. While this principle represents an institutional perspective, the opinions of the individual choir members themselves on the importance of their Finnish background have varied. In response to a questionnaire that I circulated, an alumnus from the mid-1960s wrote, ‘the repertoire in the early days was mostly Finnish, but I can’t recall that the choir was in any way a particularly nationalistic institution even though we represented Finland in international competitions and congresses’.8 Another woman who sang in the choir during its early years observed, ‘I think [Finnishness] was not such a big issue then, because we were not yet “world famous”’.9 In contrast, an alumna who was in the choir from 1966– 76 wrote, ‘while traveling, the first thing that came to my mind was always that we represented Finland and were proud of it’.10 Another former member, in the choir during the 1980s and 1990s, agreed, saying: [Finnishness was] extremely important! We were considered ambassadors of Finland and felt proud to bring a piece of home with us wherever we traveled.11

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These responses show the differences between individuals, but also reflect an increase in the importance of the choir’s national identity to its members over time, and suggest that it was related to the choir’s international travels. As the choir came into greater contact with the outside world and acted more frequently as an ambassador of Finnish culture, nationalism became a more significant aspect of its members’ experiences, and their shared Finnish background became more prominent in their ideas about the choir.

The Second Pillar: Singing and Playing According to Pohjola, the second principle of the Tapiola Choir was the combination of both singing and playing musical instruments. From the choir’s inception, Pohjola required every singer to play at least one instrument, avoiding the use of any adult accompanists. The accompanying ensembles produced from within the choir have ranged from standard piano arrangements, to the kantele, the zither-like national instrument of Finland, to an entire string orchestra. Pohjola explained this requirement as contributing to the well-roundedness of the singers. According to Pohjola, the aim of the Tapiola Choir was ‘not to produce just singers but musicians – individuals capable of expressing themselves through singing and playing alike’, and ‘to create intellectually rich, active, and humane individuals’.12 The emphasis that Pohjola placed on this holistic approach to musicianship for his amateur singers corresponded, to some extent, with the ideas about the role of amateur art in society presented by the State Art Committee. Faced with a nation whose prosperity and leisure time were both increasing in unprecedented ways, the committee recommended art, particularly choral music, as a valuable hobby with which to fill that time: The increase of free time means great opportunities and at the same time also responsibilities for amateur art. […] In collective arts, particularly in choirs, but also in orchestras and theatrical arts, the role of amateurs has been and will remain substantial, even necessary.13

The Tapiola Choir was thus not only a valuable ambassador abroad, but an excellent domestic example of the type of amateur musical activities that the state hoped to promote among Finns. Although Pohjola believed strongly in the importance of playing instrumental music, former choir members have expressed large degrees of difference in their engagement with their instruments. In an informal survey of the choir that Pohjola conducted in 1990, asking the members to

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reflect on why the Tapiola Choir was successful, several singers cited the fact that they all knew how to play instruments as one of the keys to their success – as one child wrote, playing instruments made it so that no one had, or should have had, difficulties reading sheet music.14 More recently, one young professional singer that I spoke to observed that it was interesting that among the former choir members she knew, there were many more professional instrumentalists than singers.15 Another former member noted, however, that although they were all initially required to play something, their progress afterwards wasn’t monitored. In her experience, only a select few were regularly asked to perform – and she suspected that no one would have noticed if the others stopped taking lessons.16 Thus, while the institution’s promotion of well-rounded musicianship produced many talented instrumentalists over the years, the transmission of this principle to the singers was ultimately somewhat uneven.

The Third Pillar: Collaboration with Contemporary Composers Pohjola’s third principle was the collaboration with contemporary composers – the active promotion of new music. Pohjola pursued new repertoire for children’s choirs almost from the very beginning of the Tapiola Choir’s existence, due in part to the dearth of existing material. His desire to establish the mixed-voice children’s choir as a new instrument, separate from the tradition of boys’ choirs or women’s choirs, led to this early interest in new music. The first piece written for the choir at Pohjola’s request, Bengt Johansson’s Pater Noster, was composed in 1968. Since then, the Tapiola Choir has premiered over a hundred new works, a large number of them commissioned by the choir, composed primarily by Finns. Pohjola placed a strong emphasis on active collaboration, rejecting what he termed such ‘teamwork, where the composer sits in his ivory tower composing and the children sit in their practice room singing’.17 This led to the choir frequently working directly with composers during the compositional process, providing input as the piece took shape. Due in part to Pohjola’s many connections within Finland’s musical world, the Tapiola Choir was soon singing works by virtually every prominent Finnish composer of the 20th century, including many pieces whose difficulty, atonality, or extended vocal techniques would not traditionally be seen as appropriate for children’s choirs, firmly establishing itself as an institution of high art music despite its amateur status.

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This promotion of contemporary music was a major factor in Pohjola’s establishment of his choir’s international reputation. With his mixed-voice children’s choir, he essentially created a new niche in the world of art music, and then filled it. Since the composers he was in a position to approach were primarily Finnish, this also had the effect of promoting Finnish composition specifically. In his promotion of new music, Pohjola’s goals were very much in line with that of the Finnish state. Art music, with its inherent international prestige and relatively small circle of expert critics, fits the State Arts Committee’s description of an ideal field in which to promote Finnish art, and thus knowledge of Finland and Finnish interests, abroad. As the committee wrote: There is sufficient evidence that our art has a great deal of the requirements for successfully introducing ourselves abroad, and thus for increasing the interest in, and appreciation of, our country and nation. Because the general public’s contact with the artistic achievements of distant nations generally remains coincidental and temporary, however, it is obviously most appropriate to attempt to interest experts in particular, so that they may also spread the knowledge of our art further, as intermediaries.18

Thus, the fact that the Tapiola Choir excelled within a specialized field of composition made it a better representative of Finland, more inclined to attract the attention of experts. Pohjola’s third principle, unlike his second, appears to have been powerfully transmitted to his choir members. The majority of the alumni I contacted were strong proponents of contemporary music. Responses to my survey included: Choral music and the choir itself must evolve. A good contemporary composition can also show an old composition (during the same concert for instance) in a different and fresh light. In my opinion, contemporary music is particularly good for children’s choirs. Children are more open-minded in this respect, and, because of that, are also good ambassadors for new music.

and If there is no instrument [i.e., a choir willing to, and capable of, performing modern music] there is no modern choir music, and choir singing is doomed to eventually become an historical curiosity, rather like the crumhorn quartet, suitable only for performing “period” music.19

It is clear that in this instance the ideology of the institution took strong root among its members, even though Pohjola instilled this value only by example, rather than through explicit discussion with the choir members themselves.

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The Fourth Pillar: International Understanding The last of Pohjola’s four pillars was the promotion of international understanding and cooperation. This reflects Pohjola’s deeply held personal belief in music as an instrument of social change. In his lectures, Pohjola described this belief: Music is a wonderful thing. It can affect us individually in so many different ways. But collectively it can unite us because of music’s ability to cross boundaries geographical, linguistic, racial, and political.20

It was Pohjola’s belief in music’s ability to promote world peace that he claimed as the motivation for the choir’s many international tours and for its large repertoire of songs in foreign languages. He described this agenda as ‘an ideological choice that says something about our views on the right course for cultural development to take’.21 The realm of world travel was the one in which the Tapiola Choir enjoyed the majority of its government support. During the prosperity of the 1980s, the Ministry of Education gave many grants to the choir, fully funding its summer tours, allowing it to travel far more extensively than would have otherwise been possible. The expressed purpose of these grants was cultural exchange, which came with a strong emphasis on promoting awareness of Finnish culture abroad. After the Tapiola Choir won the BBC’s competition in 1971, it was seen as an example of Finnish success that could be held up in international circles, and therefore as an excellent cultural ambassador. Each successful tour confirmed it as a worthwhile investment, allowing it to procure travel funds from the Ministry with relative ease, until the financial depression following the collapse of the USSR. Many of the Tapiola Choir’s alumni identified these tours as some of their most significant memories of the choir. For many of them, not only were those tours their first opportunity to travel abroad, but they also allowed them to visit places their families would not have been able to afford. As discussed above, it was also on these tours that they became most aware of the choir’s Finnishness, and felt most strongly that they were acting as representatives of their nation. In this sense, it was perhaps the state’s objective of promoting Finnish culture that came across more clearly for the children rather than the choir’s stated mission of international understanding – a mission that several of the alumni reported fully understanding only later in life.

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Conclusion With this brief sketch, I hope to have shown several perspectives on the workings of the Tapiola Choir. During the 20th century, the process of creating ‘national’ music was more complex than simply composing pieces inspired by nationalistic themes. Many different motivations, beliefs, goals, and experiences were involved in the choir’s performances of new music during the second half of the 20th century, and all of these contributed to producing and promoting a sense of Finnishness – a national identity. On the state level, the promotion of Finland served as the primary reason to fund the choir, and its reputation in contemporary music was a means to that end. At the institutional level, Finnishness was positioned as the quality that made the choir possible. And underneath all of this, the personal experiences of the individuals involved sometimes reflected these ideological concerns and sometimes reinterpreted them. Affirming a unique cultural identity was vital for Finland during this era, to distinguish itself from the USSR in the eyes of the world, asserting its right to political independence. Institutions like the Tapiola Choir helped to create the contemporary identity that was presented to the world, by producing new music and continually reaffirming the existence of a nation.

Notes 1

For a foundational study of music’s participation in nineteenth-century Finnish nationalism and language issues, see Goss, G. (2009). Sibelius: A Composer’s Life and the Awakening of Finland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2 The materials for this chapter were gathered between 2010 and 2012, over the course of several fieldwork trips to Finland. The archival materials were found at the choir’s office in Espoo, and include the choir’s business correspondence, personal letters to and from Erkki Pohjola, concert programs, tour schedules, photos, media clippings, and Pohjola’s many lecture notes. The ethnographic sources include fourteen responses to an electronic survey of former choir members and personal interviews with nine additional former choir members, the choir’s two conductors since Pohjola, and several others whose work intersected with the choir in some way. 3 Valtion taidekomitean (1965). Valtion taidekomitean mietintö. Helsinki: Opetusministeriö [Ministry of Education], 50: ‘Taide suorittaa sosiaalista funktiota olemalla taidetta’. 4 Valtion taidekomitean (1965), 50: ‘Taide on osa nykyaikaisen kulttuuriyhteiskunnan elämää. Se on kansakunnan olemassaolon välttämätön ja korvaamaton ilmaus ja oikeutettu saamaan tämän mukaisen vakiinnutetun aseman ja yhteiskunnan tuen. Sen asema ja sille annettava tuki eivät saa riippua suhdanteista eikä yksityisestä asianharrastuksesta […] Kysymyksessä ei tietenkään olisi taiteen kehityksen

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kahlitseminen valtiovallan suuntaviivojen mukaan tapahtuvaksi, vaan sen perusnäkemyksen omaksuminen, että valtiovalta tuntisi velvollisuudekseen edellytysten luomisen taiteen jatkuvalle suotuisalle kehitykselle sen perinnäisen vapauden pohjalta’. 5 Pohjola, E. (1990). “Children’s Choir: A New Artistic Instrument”. Unpublished paper, 2. 6 Pohjola (1990), 3. 7 Pohjola, E. & Tuomisto, M. (1993). Tapiola Sound. Ft. Lauderdale, FL: Walton Music, 87. 8 Anonymous survey respondent #1, personal survey response, 10 August 2012. 9 Anonymous survey respondent #2, personal survey response, 3 September 2012. 10 Anonymous survey respondent #3, personal survey response, 16 August 2012: ‘Kyllä matkoilla aina tuli ensimmäisenä mieleen, että edustimme Suomea ja olimme siitä ylpeitä’. 11 Anonymous survey respondent #4, personal survey response, 10 August 2012. 12 Pohjola & Tuomisto (1993), 58, 193. 13 Valtion taidekomitean (1965), 49: ‘Vapaa-ajan lisääntyminen merkitsee uusia mahdollisuuksia ja samalla velvollisuuksia myös taiteen harrastukselle […] Kollektiivisilla taiteen aloilla, ennen muuta kuoro-, mutta myös orkesteri- ja näyttämötaiteessa on harrastajien osuus ollut ja tulee edelleenkin olemaan tuntuva, osittain välttämätönkin’. 14 Unpublished letter, Tapiola Choir office. 4 December 1990: ‘Jokainen kuorolainen soittaa myös vähintään yhtä instrumenttia, joten nuottien luvussa ei kenelläkään ole tai pitäisi olla vaikeuksia’. 15 Anonymous interviewee #1, personal interview, 12 August 2012. 16 Anonymous interviewee #2, personal interview, 20 August 2012. 17 Pohjola (1990), 6. 18 Valtion taidekomitean (1965), 55: ‘On riittävästi esimerkkejä siitä, että taiteellamme on melkoisen runsaasti edellytyksiä menestykselliseen esittäytymiseen ulkomailla ja siten maahamme ja kansaamme kohdistuvan mielenkiinnon ja arvonannon lisäämiseen. Kun varsinaisen suuren yleisön kosketus kaukaisen kansakunnan taiteen saavutuksiin kuitenkin yleensä jää sattumanvaraiseksi ja tilapäiseksi, on ilmeisesti tarkoituksenmukaisinta ponnistella erityisesti asiantuntijain kiinnostuksen herättämiseksi, jolloin taiteemme tuntemus heidän välittämänään saattaa levitä laajemmallekin’. 19 Anonymous survey respondent #5, personal survey response, 20 August 2012: ‘kuoromusiikin ja kuoron itsensä täytyy kehittyä’; Anonymous survey respondent #2, personal survey response, 3 September 2012; Anonymous survey respondent #3, personal survey response, 16 August 2012: ‘Nykymusiikki sopii mielestäni erittäin hyvin lapsikuorolle. Lapset ovat ennakkoluulottomampia tässä suhteessa ja siinä mielessä myös hyviä uuden musiikin lähettiläitä’; Anonymous survey respondent #1, personal survey response, 10 August 2012. 20 Pohjola (1990), 7. 21 Pohjola & Tuomisto (1993), 193.

CHAPTER FOUR ESTONIAN SONG CELEBRATIONS AS DRIVERS FOR POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE LAINE RANDJÄRV

The tradition of Estonia’s Song Celebrations has continued uninterrupted for 145 years and all those milestone events have become part of the Estonian identity. The role of Song Celebrations cannot be viewed separately from that of its foundation – Estonian choral tradition. Bearing this in mind, the paper will analyse the Estonian Song Celebration Tradition – a cultural civic movement with a long history, which stemmed from the movement of associations. Before the first Nationwide Song Celebration in 1869, Estonians used to refer to themselves as ‘country folk’, whereas contemporary Estonians of the 21st century now like to call themselves the ‘singing nation’, often making a special reference to the Song Celebrations. Historians agree that Estonian Song Celebrations have played a key role in the involvement of masses throughout centuries, thus constituting a powerful stimulant for social processes. Moreover, the tradition played a crucial role in the resistance movement and the consolidation of the nation. Shortly before the restitution of the independence of the Republic of Estonia, the Song Celebration became a crucial influencer of the course of history. This article will focus on the roles played by Estonian choral culture and its creative intellectuals in socio-political processes, mostly during the period after the Second World War. More specifically, I have studied the Estonian Song Celebration tradition, its ideas, its leaders and its importance for Estonian culture and society during the Soviet period. The topic is viewed through the work of two outstanding figures of the tradition, Tuudur Vettik and Roland Laasmäe. This approach has helped to fill a gap in the research of Estonian post-war cultural history, since the cultural policy of the period has so far been studied mostly from the aspects of literature, theatre and art.

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The modest role of music as a research topic is fairly surprising after the attacks of the Soviet regime against the Estonian national culture prior to their climax – the 1950 March Plenum of the Estonian Communist Party (ECP). Their widely publicised repression aimed to demonstrate how the bourgeois nationalist element was purged. Against this background, it is somewhat puzzling that post-war Estonian choral culture and Song Celebration tradition have for the most part only been reflected in memoirs, the majority of which has been published a long time ago, well under Soviet censorship.

The Song Celebration and its role in the resistance movement The Estonian historical cultural event with the longest traditions – the Song Celebration – is not only of aesthetic and emotional value, but also bears the characteristics of a spiritual fight for freedom. It has supported organized resistance in a certain sense throughout Estonian history. Occupation and resistance have followed parallel paths for half a century.1 The Song Festival Ground has been called the real topos of Estonian people; the Song Celebration movement and the following promotion of the Estonian cause has been compared to events in the Estonian literature and theatre, but to its advantage: Along with the Song Celebrations, the Estonian literature from 1960s to 1980s was an enclave of the public and the corpus mysticum (mystical body or common spirit) of the Estonians. This common spirit was revealed in Song Celebration processions, joint singing at the Song Festival Ground, but also at the funerals of cultural heroes […] and particularly in the theatre, where […] the “Estonian cause was fought for”.2

Various authors have emphasised that immediately before the independence of the Republic of Estonia was restored, the Song Celebration itself had become a significant historical pioneer. Emphasis is also put on the remarkable part that choir singing played in the peaceful restoration of Estonia’s independence, where the Singing Revolution on the Tallinn Song Festival Ground culminated in a strong sense of liberation, while the feeling created by Song Celebrations has been called one of the psychological defence cornerstones of Estonia.3 Our Song Celebrations have also been recognised internationally – Estonian Song Celebrations have been entered into the UNESCO Cultural Heritage list in 2003, along with similar events in Latvia and Lithuania.4 The contemporary song celebration tradition is

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fairly similar in all three Baltic States, and processes after the Second World War have evolved in similar ideological frameworks. It is not within the scope of this article to give a detailed overview and analysis of similar events in other European countries. However, Vettik has stated that the Latvian and Finnish song celebrations of the early 1920s had much higher participation figures than their Estonian counterparts. The joint choir of the Latvian Song Celebration gathered six thousand singers, while Finland had a joint choir of three thousand singers. In 1928, Vettik defined the national cultural role and the nationwide character of the Song Celebrations. He also raised the issues of whether their repertoire was within the capabilities of the singers, of how the choirs prepared, and questions of the organization of pre-rehearsals and the Celebration itself. Furthermore, he compared Estonian, Latvian and Finnish song celebrations and found that the Latvian and Finnish programmes were on a higher artistic level than the Estonian one. In the year of Vettik’s study, 15,000 singers were already taking part in the Estonian Song Celebration.5 Participation was most numerous in the 1960s and 70s, with up to 37,000 singers.6 Song Celebrations have been prepared, organized and created together by choir singers, professional musicians and the people since their very beginning. The tradition has been handed down from generation to generation. The modern system for teaching music in schools is strong and includes musical theory and literature, as well as choir singing practice. Similar special pedagogical systems are used in Latvia and Lithuania. A Song Celebration is an event where various factors combine. Important factors next to the creative and artistic side of the festivals include the programmes, the work of the officials and cultural figures in organizing committees, the quality of their cooperation and opportunities for contributing. In the history of the Estonian Song Celebrations, most of the problems that have not been thoroughly studied or analysed are linked to the years of occupation and annexation during the period after the Second World War. The Soviet regime created a situation where the organization of Song Celebrations excluded any meaningful public discussion because the entire organization and repertoire policy were controlled by Party officials. Certain cultural figures acquired a so-called ‘hallowed’ reputation during the years of Soviet annexation, which has made it awkward for researchers to analyse this period. A number of difficult topics and questions were not possible to discuss openly, and still remain so.

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In order to understand the deeper nature of Song Celebrations as national resistance, we need to study the external and internal semantic signs of the Song Celebrations as events. Photographs of compulsory subject matters, with people marching in Estonian national costumes under red flags, reveal under closer scrutiny examples of the forbidden blue, black, and white colour combination; the writers’ longing for their real independent homeland could be read between the verses of songs; musical compositions used recognisable folk song motifs; and badges worn by organizers of the festivals carried historical and ethnic symbols. In contrast, children wore the compulsory red scarf tied over their national costumes, and self-made double entendre banners of the 1980s. The main message of resistance is found in the repertoire choices and programmes of the Song Celebrations. Researchers of the history of choir movements have so far analysed repertoire choice only in odd episodic segments, but the analysis of the principles for compiling the repertoire of Song Celebrations and the inclusion of multi-layered songs in the Song Celebration programme in spite of the strict control of the Communist regime has not yet been treated in a thorough and comprehensive way.7 The Song Celebration movement is a platform for ideological and cultural resistance, whether read publicly or between the lines: the first Celebration in 1869 was actually the first forceful demonstration, which demanded the right for an Estonian language culture; all the songs in the programme of the 1910 Celebration were not only sung in Estonian but also written by Estonian authors, in order to further emphasise the praising of the national culture. One of the most powerful symbols to stick in the national memory from the middle of the last century and to help keep up the strength of spirit and hope is the song Mu isamaa on minu arm (My Fatherland is my Love, on a poem by Lydia Koidula), for which Gustav Ernesaks composed new music in 1944 and which became the national anthem in people’s hearts, the so-called ‘heart anthem’. In the 1950s and 1960s, in the aftermath of Russification policy and repressions, the Estonians did not lose the hope of seeing their lost independence return. During the Song Celebrations they dressed in ethnic costumes and looked forward to singing and hearing the song Mu isamaa on minu arm. Officially the song was not included in the programme of the 1955 and 1960 All-Estonian Song Celebrations but was added to the list of the so-called encore songs.8 The history of Song Celebrations has always been marked by charismatic personalities among the creators as well as the organizers. The importance of the activities of choirmasters in Estonian cultural history

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during the Soviet annexation after the Second World War and during the culmination of the war against the national culture – the Estonian Communist (Bolsheviks) Party (EC(b)P) March Plenum – as well as during the following years of the so-called Khrushchev Thaw, have unreasonably been left without attention. Choirmasters as personalities and individuals, with their charisma and intellectual power, have influenced history. They unite tens of thousands of people under their baton, not only in the musical sense but also as cultural leaders. Song Celebrations are phenomenal events, where a person – a conductor, organizer, composer or lyricist – can influence thousands of singers, listeners, and thus the whole nation through their power of intellect and personality, and through the idea behind the melody and lyrics. This in turn gives the Song Celebration a huge importance and places great responsibility on the shoulders of the leaders of the Song Celebration movement – with their attitudes, ideas and power of the mind. Several Estonian historians have noted that the Estonian song celebration culture has been bypassed in studies and historical research has been limited to political history or narrow niche subjects.9 The history of Estonian Song Celebrations can be divided into the following periods: x x x x x

National awakening, the Song Celebrations at the end of the 19th century: 1869, 1879, 1881, 1891, 1894, 1896; Song Celebrations of the beginning of the 20th century and the first years of the Republic of Estonia: 1910, 1923, 1928, 1933, 1938; Song Celebrations in the decades following the Second World War: 1947–1980; Song Celebrations of period of the Singing Revolution or the new national awakening: 1985–1990; Searches for identity and the development of Song Celebrations after Estonia regained its independence: 1994–2009.

The influence of choir music has remained fairly strong in the minds of the people in Estonia as well as in the other Baltic states.10 Raga explains that choir singing and many of its values promote social integration, tolerance, respect, sense of community and solidarity. Choir singing is a common language and it thus fights against marginalisation. By strengthening the self-image of a person, it builds society and contributes to the development of the individual.11

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Song Celebrations as a Soviet propaganda instrument In autumn 1939, when Soviet military bases were set up on the Estonian soil, the Republic got its first taste of the rigidity of the totalitarian regime. In barely a year, the country had lost its independence in the most appalling way, as if by its own hand.12 The Song Celebration and its symbols were designed to praise the foreign authorities. The photographs taken at Celebrations show images of Lenin and Stalin, posters praising the Communist Party of Soviet Union [CPSU] and other Soviet propaganda on the Song Festival Ground. Through culture or its direct, albeit forced support, masses were visually and mentally influenced in the annexed Estonia for the next five decades. The content of the Celebrations was determined by decisions adopted by the EC(b)P Central Committee, who in turn received its instructions from the CPSU Central Committee. Their binding decisions were then sent to the ESSR Composers’ Union.13 The chain of command had to function without obstacles; those who rebelled or were too indifferent were removed. This is evident from the materials pertaining to the preparation, organization and drawing of conclusions of the 12th (1947) and the 13th (1950) All-Estonian Song Celebrations. Important information can be found in archival files that list the permitted and the banned songs and the banned wall posters. Kuutma points out that in the context of ideological and administrationcontrolled cultural activities of the Soviet era, the Song Celebrations and the choir movement carried an explicit or a hidden cultural symbolism14 which later was termed ‘the preservation of the Estonian culture’ by historians.15 Demonstrations of strength by the CPSU became particularly evident in the 1960s and 1970s when the repertoire distinctly reflected the forced education of the Estonian people. This is illustrated in the analysis of the repertoire of All-Estonian Song Celebrations from 1947 to the 1980s (see Diagram 2). Original works by Estonian authors made up much less than one half of the repertoire in certain years, while odes to great leaders – sometimes Stalin, sometimes Lenin – as well as to the Soviet homeland, the Soviet Army and the Communist Party abounded. The last group also included pieces (odes, cantatas, songs) created by Estonian composers specifically for these musical events by the commission of the Communist Party and through the intermediation of the ESSR Composers’ Union.16 The same trends were seen in the concert programmes of each choir, and in the organization of singing and cultural events. Obedience to the regime or rebellion against it was monitored by checking the percentage of

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the so-called Lenin-songs in the repertoire. All music and art teachers had to work in line with these principles and the demands to reflect the ideological and political atmosphere in their cultural activities. The Minister of Culture Johannes Lott wrote in 1982: The Soviet culture is loyal to the Leninist principles of the Communist Party, the ideas of Soviet patriotism and socialist internationalism. It has always been an efficient instrument for instructing workers in communist ideas.17

Attempts have been made at different times to bend the message of Song Celebrations to the Estonian nation in various directions. The Soviet authorities tried to utilise it particularly forcefully and methodically to serve the communist propaganda; they pressured the organizers into using the repertoire to glorify the regime, and decorated the Song Celebrations with political posters, banners and portraits of Soviet politicians.

Reflection of political fight in Song Celebration repertoire During the Soviet annexation, the Song Celebration movement constituted an important aspect of the passive resistance to the foreign regime. My study has led to the following questions: how and to what extent have the earlier Song Celebrations influenced the shaping of the national identity in the recent past and today? How firmly have the events of the past Song Celebrations been recorded in cultural memory? To what extent, if at all, do today’s creators depend on the attitudes prevalent in the past?18 Did choir singing or Song Celebrations become part of the Soviet ideological apparatus or not? In order to receive a better overview of the changes and emphases during different governments or regimes, we have analysed the repertoire of the Song Celebrations through their 140 years of history.19 The overview has been divided into three categories: the repertoire of the Song Celebrations in 1869–1938 (see Diagram 1),20 1947–1980 (Diagram 2) and 1985–2009 (Diagram 3). Since the present study mainly focuses on the period 1947–1980, we have explained the repertoire in more details here. At the same time, the first and the third Diagrams are good for comparison and help us to better understand the conflicting period under observation as well as the transition periods of 1938–1947 and 1985–1994. One objective of the analysis of the repertoire is to bring out the methods that the Soviet authorities used in order to attract part of the creative intelligentsia to their cause and thus sow strong discord among creative figures.

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The categorisation of repertoire has been made by the subject, the message and the time of creation of the songs. The explanation of genres has been given next to the diagrams with symbols. The term ‘original Estonian piece’ (Eesti algupärand) needs further explanation – this contains the songs created before 1940; ‘Estonian patriotic songs’ (Eesti isamaalised laulud) consists of songs that speak about love for the Estonian homeland. Diagram 1 shows that the 19th century Song Celebrations had a strong representation of religious music. Songs of praise to the emperor and the tsar were also numerous. The article Festivities of Estonians in Russia in the newspaper ɇɨɜɴ [News]21 published in Russia in 1895 gives an overview of the 5th General Song Celebration held in Tartu [Yuryev]. In addition to the description of the choirs and the programme, the article does not fail to emphasise that the celebration on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of liberation from serfdom and all the celebrations of the Estonians can take place only thanks to the Russian magnanimity and patience towards its border regions and also because Russia has liberated all its border regions from the Baltic German oppression. Original Estonian choir songs became common after the 7th General Song Celebration in 1910, when the programme was made up mainly of songs by Estonian composers. All pieces apart from the compulsory Song of the Emperor and some pieces for brass orchestras were created by Estonian composers. Programmes for 1923–1938 also mainly contained choir hymns by Estonian composers. It is important to note that during the first years of the Republic of Estonia, the songs performed at the Song Celebrations were not used to praise the President or the Cabinet. Judging by the number of patriotic songs in the programmes, the favourite topic of Estonian singers was the Fatherland. But the programmes took a drastic turn with the Soviet annexation. The preparations for the 12th All-Estonian Song Celebration in 1947, the first Soviet-era Song Celebration, began immediately after the end of the Second World War. The December 1945 issue of Sirp ja Vasar published a long article by Tuudur Vettik on the preparations for the Song Celebration. The Estonian nation, that was again starting to settle down to a peacetime rhythm of life, was still free to talk about the tradition of Song Celebrations going back to 1869 and the All-Estonian Song Celebrations that had taken place during the Republic of Estonia, about the 20,000 singers who had stood on the stage in 1938 and about the repertoire they had performed.

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Diagram 1. Analysis of the repertoire of the Song Celebrations between 1869– 1938 on the basis of genre and background of the songs.

The journal of the 12th All-Estonian Song Celebration published in 1946 bears the first signs of the disappearance of the independent Estonian cultural space. It declared that new times had arrived in Estonia, where singers and musicians ‘have the right to receive the necessary help from the Soviet authorities’.22 In 1946, Nigol Andresen, who – according to Valge23 - had started to march to the angry rhythm dictated by Moscow drums as early as mid-1930s, announced that ‘the 12th All-Estonian Song Celebration must boast massive participation and have a more monumental impact than the earlier Festivals’.24 Andresen claimed that the Soviet government and the Communist Party put great emphasis on its preparation and organization and that singers and musicians with their leaders ‘have not been left on their own’.25 It is remarkable that the 1947 Celebration was numbered the 12th. The th 12 Celebration had originally been planned for 1943, during the German occupation. However, that festival was cancelled because of the war, and the number was deferred. Starting numeration from the first Song Celebration

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1869 might seem to be an insignificant detail, but in essence it speaks about the continuation of historical memory of the lost republic which the Soviet occupation forces have never publically acknowledged. Since Vettik was supposed to have been the Head Conductor of the cancelled 1943 Thanksgiving Song Celebration, it seemed only natural during the preparation period of the 1947 Celebration that he would assume the responsibility for organizing the first festival after the war.26 Vettik himself was sure that the 1947 All-Estonian Song Celebration would be a success if only all the choirs who had studied the material arrived in full numbers and if all the general rehearsals were carried out successfully.27 In addition to the organizational issues of the Celebration, Vettik’s writings show him balancing on the edge; for example, he wrote about the ravages suffered by the Estonian choirs during the war. Allandi mentions that [w]e also know how much our choir singing degraded during the years of war, and that mending the wounds of war has demanded great efforts from us.28

The organizational committee of the 12th All-Estonian Song Celebration, under the lead of Tuudur Vettik, managed, by a stroke of luck, to use the repertoire of the cancelled 1943 Celebration.29 This politically paradoxical situation, where the elements of a programme prepared during the German occupation were successfully introduced into the programme of a Soviet Song Celebration, has been remarked upon with some amazement by the expatriate choirmaster Harri Kiisk.30 Although the 1947 Song Celebration took place in honour of the 30th anniversary of the Great Socialist October Revolution, 53% of its programme was still made up of original Estonian choir music and Estonian folk songs with only an odd song here or there about the ‘great leader Stalin or Lenin’. In 1947, the ‘Sovietisation’ process had not yet gone into full swing and thanks to this, as incredible as it seems, it was possible to organize this festival as one of the most patriotic All-Estonian Song Celebrations over the next fifty years. Songs taken from the programme of the cancelled Celebration included Tuljak (Coming) by Miina Härma, Kaera-Jaan (Jack of Oats) by Tuudur Vettik and Pulmalaul (Wedding Song) by Riho Päts. Although the list of songs in the new programme changed, original Estonian choir songs by Mihkel Lüdig, Mart Saar, Konstantin Türnpu, Aleksander Läte, Miina Härma and Enn Võrk were still represented. Some truly patriotic songs were performed as well: Mull’ lapsepõlves rääkis (I Was Told in My Childhood) by Türnpu, Ihkasime ikkest lahti (We Craved Freedom from

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Oppression) by Saar, Sääl nüüd kasvab (We See Growing There) by Lüdig and, for the first time also Mu isamaa on minu arm (My Fatherland is My Love) by Ernesaks.31 The files on banned and permitted songs compiled by the ESSR Department of Arts subdivision responsible for inspecting the performances and repertoire contain interesting facts about the song Mis need ohjad meida hoidvad (Why Do These Reins Hold Us) by Mart Saar.32 This song had first been banned on 23 November 1945. Consequently, it was permitted by the censors in the programme of the 1947 Song Celebration under the condition that the original title be changed to Ihkasime ikkest lahti (We Craved Freedom from Oppression) although it openly spoke of the loss of freedom.33 Despite the initial lenience, the song with its new title Ihkasime ikkest lahti (We Craved Freedom from Oppression) was again banned after the 1947 Song Celebration, with the comment ‘Repeated’. This meant that in spite of repeated requests the performance of this song was out of the question. The song was not heard again until the 1969 Song Celebration, now under a third title Leelo (The Song).34 The repertoire booklets printed for the 1947 All-Estonian Song Celebration still carried the title 12th All-Estonian Song Celebration. The recommendation by Georgy Polianovsky, an active member of the AllUnion Society for Spreading Political and Scientific Knowledge, presented in a categorical form in the article ‘Big Culture of a Small Country’ after the 1947 Song Celebration, no longer leaves anyone in doubt that the Soviet government and the Communist Party had taken to forcefully directing and controlling life and culture. The commemorative album of the Song Celebration reproduces the article by Polianovsky from the 2 August 1947 issue of the newspaper Sirp ja Vasar, where he recommends the Estonian composers to create popular songs about the best representatives of their nation for the next Song Celebration: heroes of work, innovators of production, fiery patriots who did not shelter their own life during the Great Patriotic War and who continue their heroic acts in the conditions of peace – in the manufacturing plant, on the field, behind the desk of a scientist or the easel of a painter.35

The Song Celebrations lead committee adopted this recommendation as a direct guideline when preparing for the 1950 All-Estonian Song Celebration. The commemorative album of the 12th Song Celebration is a poignant testament to the ever increasing ideological pressure of the foreign regime in 1948. A new lead committee was founded in the same year, 1948, to prepare for the 13th All-Estonian Song Celebration, but it was led by completely

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different people – members of the Communist Party Eduard Päll, Nigol Andresen, Anton Vaarandi, Georg Abels, Aleksander Valsiner and August Saukas.36 The repertoire committee of the Celebration was ideologically the most valued by the governing clique. Since 1948 it worked under the leadership of Gustav Ernesaks.37 But in April 1950 the members of the lead committee were exchanged again. New men rose to the leading positions. These men were Estonians from Russia who had already lived in Russia for a long time and who had lost the connection to Estonia’s culture and traditions. We could name Aleksander Kelberg, Aleksander Ansberg and Leonid Lentsman.38 Only three musicians from the earlier lead committee remained: Gustav Ernesaks, Karl Leinus and Leopold Vigla.39 Tuudur Vettik, Alfred Karindi and Riho Päts, who had been the ‘driving engines’ behind the 12th All-Estonian Song Celebration, were cut off from leadership according to the plan of the Party. They had dared to organize a blatantly patriotic and national Song Celebration in 1947 and were arrested before the next Celebration in 1950. Tuudur Vettik had been the leader of the Song Celebration movement during the first years of the Republic of Estonia. He was free from nationalist limitations and narrowmindedness, and had the nerve to admit that Estonia had once belonged to the German cultural space. We can assume that his success story and sovereign popularity would have continued into the 1950s and even further on, had he remained free. For the occupying forces, people like Vettik were dangerous. Tuudur Vettik was a recognised authority with a strong character, intelligence and quick wit; he was courageous of speech and had demonstrated his ability to devote himself entirely to the task at hand. He was a good organizer who could have mobilised the people.40 In addition to the trio Vettik-Karindi-Päts, Arno Kallikorm and Hugo Kirdelaht were also excluded from the general leaders, while Ants Kiilaspea, Jaan Kääramees and Aleksei Stepanov were invited to direct the Celebration.41 At its first meeting on 15th April 1950, the lead committee confirmed the changed programme of the Song Celebration, although two rehearsal rounds had already taken place. While the note sheets printed in 1947– 1949 read 13th Estonian Song Celebration, the new 6th repertoire booklet of the 13th Song Celebration, prepared and printed hurriedly in just two days in April 1950, contained mostly songs written by Russian authors in praise of the Soviet regime. Songs by Harry Kõrvits, Adolf Vedro and Mihkel Lüdig were also added, replacing songs by Vettik, Karindi and Päts that had been removed after their arrest.42 The word ‘Estonian’ had been removed from the title of the songbook and its working title was simply 13th Song Celebration. However, a

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decision was made on 12 May to rename the 13th Song Celebration – at the request of the workers – the Soviet Estonian Song Celebration of 1950 and it was consecrated to the 10th anniversary of the ESSR.43 From then on, the Song Celebrations were tied to the anniversaries of the ESSR. They were therefore organized in years ending with 0 or 5, mostly around 21 July, when the anniversary of the ESSR was celebrated. The historical numeration of the Song Celebrations was suppressed from official documentation, but continued to be used in practice for the next 40 years. The views on the popular cultural event of the new lead committee differed drastically from the previous committee. From now on, the choice of programmes for the Song Celebrations was governed by propagandistic, not musical, reasons. High quality choir hymns were omitted from the programme and performances by the ESSR united oil shale basin choir were added. This choir did not yet exist, but according to the bolshevist logic it only needed to be founded. An organization campaign for a miners’ choir was launched and a choir was made up, mainly of Russians. Choirmaster Karl Leinus was sent to the mining region for this purpose.44 The ESSR All-Estonian Song Celebration of 1950 took place on 22 and 23 July. From then on, mainly songs praising the great Soviet homeland, Soviet Army, Stalin or Lenin, as well as so-called songs of other nations were performed at Song Celebrations.45 The All-Estonian Song Celebration of 1950 was the ‘reddest’ during the Soviet era. This was expressed by the various ideologically imperative/correct songs (which made up about three quarters of the programme) as well as by the decorations. The colours vigorously attempted to erase everything considered national and ethnic from the national memory and view of life. The recently created miners’ choir performed three songs, two of which in Russian, and the fighters of the Soviet Army who marched on the stage accompanied by a boisterous orchestra performed five mono- or biphonic soldiers’ songs in Russian. This was probably the least joyous Song Celebration in the Estonian history. Mall Johanson, who took part in the Celebration as a 15-year-old girl, described her emotions: It makes my hair stand on end to look at the repertoire now. The Festival started with three hurrahs in praise of the great leaders and it continued in the same vein, it was crazy!46

Original Estonian songs barely made up one fifth of the programme. Despite the ideological pressure, choirmasters managed to include songs about freedom and the beloved homeland, such as Munamäel (On Top of Hill Munamägi) by Karl August Hermann, Kaunimad laulud (The Most

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Beautiful Songs) by Friedrich Säbelmann, or Oh, kevadine kodumaa (Oh, Homeland in springtime) by Johannes Kappel. It is a real miracle that the censors allowed these songs. But these were also the only lapses among the 52 songs. The end of the era of the ‘great leader and teacher’ Stalin was still over two and a half years away. After the death of Stalin in 1953, the first cracks appeared in the communist ideology. Official condemnation of Stalin’s personality cult and the Khrushchev Thaw made the state leaders ideologically insecure. By analysing the repertoire of Song Celebrations against this background we can see that the directors of the Estonian choir music managed to sense the ‘boundaries of the permissible’ very well and were able to take the defence of the national culture quite far. Diagram 2. Analysis of the repertoire of the Song Celebrations between 1947– 1980 on the basis of genre and background of the songs.

Diagram 2 confirms that even during the deepest Soviet period, original Estonian songs were included in the programme. This is where the remarkable role of the creative figures – choirmasters, composers and definitely also patriotic music teachers – rises into focus. They helped to

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safeguard the identity of the nation through choir singing and Song Celebrations even during the most difficult times. Regarding the post-war era, Latvian musicologist Arnolds KlotiƼš has noted that despite the Stalinist propagandist façade, Song Celebrations in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania continued to keep the breath of national awakening and self-affirmation in their core.47 From 1960, Russian choirs also took place in the Soviet Estonian Song Celebrations, and special songbooks were published for their use, in Russian. The Estonian songs in the programme of the Celebration were provided with a Russian translation! Songs praising the Soviet homeland, the Party, Lenin, the Soviet Army and friendship of nations prevailed in the programmes of the 1960 and particularly the 1965 All-Estonian Song Celebrations. The repertoire of the Song Celebrations inevitably had to take a lead from the great politics. Nikita Khrushchev was removed from power in 1964 and a much more conservative branch of the Communist Party took control of the Soviet Union, finding that far too many ideological concessions had been made. A new ‘tightening of the screws’ began in ideology and cultural policy. This was clearly reflected in the repertoire policy of the Song Celebrations, where the roles of the Party, the Soviet homeland and the ‘great leader’ were strengthened. While songs to Stalin were still sung loudly at the beginning of the 1950s, after his death and the consequent realization by the Party functionaries that Stalinist crimes no longer needed to be glorified, the programs first focused on the Soviet Army and homeland; but after the rise of Leonid Brezhnev to the Chairman of the CPSU Central Committee, Lenin once again became the greatest idol. The programmes of the All-Estonian Song Celebrations in 1965–1985 thus gave particular attention to the personality of Lenin and the glorification of the Communist Party. Diagram 2 shows that Estonian choir music (incl. patriotic songs, original Estonian songs, contemporary Estonian songs and Estonian folk songs) formed a large part – nearly 70% – of the repertoire of the 1969 Anniversary Song Celebration. The organization committee had worked extra hard to achieve this and had fought with ideological inspectors in order to be able to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the AllEstonian Song Celebrations in a worthy manner and in an Estonian way. It is a miracle that the programme of the 1975 Song Celebration included a religious song – Eks teie tea (You Know, also Largo) by Rudolf Tobias, which was performed in Latin. This was probably why the censors did not think of banning it. The 1980 All-Estonian Song Celebration was another occasion, where over one half of the programme

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(52 %) was made up of Estonian choir music; at the same time, Tallinn was hosting the Olympic regatta and therefore welcomed a great number of foreign guests. Diagram 3 gives an overview of the time preceding the Singing Revolution until today. The Celebrations of 1985–1990 already contain the seeds of a ‘revolutionary’ attitude. Let us look at the dramatic change in colouring of the programmes from 1985 to 1990. While the 1985 programme still contained songs loyal to the Party ideology, by 1990 any hints of communism had completely disappeared. Diagram 3. Analysis of the repertoire of the Song Celebrations between 1985– 2009 on the basis of genre and background of the songs.

Analysis allows us to conclude that the same trend was repeated in the programmes – at the Song Celebrations of the independent Estonia there was no place for praises of the government bodies in the 1920s and 1930s any more than at the turn of the 21st century. The repertoire was then, and is now, mostly about the Estonian Fatherland, home and interpersonal relationships. Independent Estonia recognizes no personality cult, which prevailed e.g. during the Soviet regime as well as during the tsarist era. The people publicly showed their faith in the return of the freedom as early as at the Night Song Celebration of June 1988. In summer 1990, the

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patriotic message was heard at the Song Festival Ground from tens of thousands of singers. Choirs and their leaders confirmed their will to restore the independence of the Republic of Estonia a year before politicians reached the actual decision to restore it at the end of 1991. At first, the songbooks printed for the 1990 Song Celebration obediently contained the compulsory ideological repertoire but in the year of the festival, the organizers decided to omit it. The choirs set out to learn only Estonian patriotic songs, which formed a record number at 15. In addition, there were 19 original Estonian choir pieces, 12 arrangements of Estonian folk songs and a couple of religious songs. Having compared all the three diagrams and analysed the repertoire throughout the 140-year history of the Song Celebrations we can conclude that the socio-political as well as the social impact of the Song Celebration movement has been crucial at radical breaking-points of history. It is clear that the church played an important role during the first period under observation (1869–1938). The Emperor and later the tsar, who were praised in songs, only came second to the church. From the beginning of the 20th century, works by Estonian composers gained importance, whether they were created specifically for the event or not. During the early years of the Republic of Estonia, the percentage of patriotic songs rose dramatically for the 8th to 9th Song Celebrations. The third period (1985–2009) sees a repeat of the processes in the 1920s – just like after becoming free from the tsarist oppression, the Republic of Estonia again devotes the Song Celebrations nearly entirely to expressing patriotic love, having been engaged in an active fight for freedom since the end of the 1980s and having regained its independence on 20 August 1991. The millennium turn also brings back spiritual music. Since the period of bolshevist regime is oversaturated with a compulsory repertoire of love for the Soviet homeland and personality cult, Russian music was not welcome at the Song Celebrations of the newly independent Estonia; even classical Russian choral music was not included in the programme. This was a counter reaction to the era of intellectual repression. Diagram 2 (period 1940–1980) clearly reflects the ideological pressure put on composers to treat compulsory Soviet subjects, and on singers who were forced to learn and perform this production. During this period, Mu isamaa on minu arm (My Fatherland is My Love) by Gustav Ernesaks became an alternative national anthem. The totalitarian control system of the Soviet society was built on orders and bans and tended to crumble occasionally in real life. Although the conductors had to apply for a permit to perform a particular programme in

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concert, the strict requirement to sing songs by ‘other Soviet nations’ did not prevent the choirs from performing pieces that they or their audience liked. These were performed as encore songs that did not have to be included in official programmes. The audience of the time was able to distinguish between the actual content and the obligatory packaging. They received the messages of the choirs loud and clear. The resistance movement, which found expression through the choir culture, became particularly apparent at the Student Song Celebrations which were a branch of the Song Celebration movement. One could see the first student Song Celebration Gaudeamus, which took place in Tartu in 1956, as a precursor of the Singing Revolution; although it was formally organized under the auspices of friendship between nations, its core held a strong attitude of resistance. The gathering of students from many countries to Tartu created an emotionally and intellectually flammable situation because these young people were not afraid to express their true thoughts and attitudes regarding the Soviet regime.48 The Student Song Celebration Gaudeamus took place in summer 1956. Just a few months later, on 23 October, a popular uprising against the Soviet annexation and the communist regime broke out in Hungary, Estonia’s kindred nation. Tens of thousands of people gathered on the streets of Budapest and sang banned patriotic songs. The fire of the Hungarian uprising was left smouldering in Europe for a long time, and it never really went out. It is possible that the Gaudeamus of 1956 and the desperate revolt in Hungary kept alive and, years later, rekindled the fires of the 1988 Night Song Celebration in Estonia. It is remarkable that the Student Song Celebration Gaudeamus in Vilnius 1988 was the first event where the flags of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were brought out in daylight in the Baltic States. This strengthened people’s belief that it was possible to overpower the governing regime and it did not take long until the independence of the Baltic states was restored. It would of course be an exaggeration to claim that it was thanks to the Student Song Celebration in Vilnius that Baltic countries regained their freedom, but the Song Celebration and the choir movement allowed people to express – covertly at first, but gradually more and more openly – their attitude towards the annexation. Talking about the shaping of social history, the writer and scholar of literature Rein Veidemann has said that history creates situations that in turn create choices which can be described on the cause-consequence axis.49 In my opinion, the fate and the future of hundreds of thousands often depend on the ideas, attitudes and decisions of the leaders.

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Despite the specificity of musical culture, composers and choirmasters were able to feel free only within a strictly prescribed framework during this repressive period, following the Soviet rules. Strangely enough, these rules dictated that Song Celebrations and concerts had to take place no matter what and that they had to be numerous. The historian John Pick describes dictatorial regimes, including the Soviet era, with real insight when he says that history offers examples of how governments use art to repress dissidents and appease discontent, from the times when the Romans pacified rebellious citizens by providing bread and circus. The governments exercise pressure for organizing national ceremonies, and music has a privileged position:50 The Soviet government published, even through the most difficult economic situations, a remarkable amount of media, poetry and fiction and often distributed it free of charge in railway stations, markets and residential districts.51

Such was the estranged society where choirmasters and creators Roland Laasmäe and Tuudur Vettik spent their best years. They kept their independence of mind throughout the events, to the alarm, discomfort and annoyance of the foreign powers. There is a term – ‘Estonian vitality’ – that was coined by Oskar Loorits, who was an expert in describing Estonians and who thought that they reacted to disturbances like hedgehogs, rolling into a prickly ball.52 They do not jump to bite the attacker like dogs, but react by withdrawing within themselves and resisting passively. Yet, this does in no way mean that they sleep or surrender. On the contrary, their level of alertness and watchfulness is high. The Song Celebrations after the death of Stalin soon showed that despite the great losses, the deportations and the repressions along with the confiscation of property, the Estonian nation had not lost its vitality. In conclusion, this study of the activities and the epistolary legacy of Tuudur Vettik and Roland Laasmäe allows us to claim that both were creative personalities who kept vitality and free thought alive in their time. If, while recording the history of Estonia, we have been proud of the avoidance of bloodshed in restoring our independence, we cannot ignore the fact that the leaders of Estonia’s popular movements were capable of precisely sensing the boundaries tolerated by the regime when moving forward. This expertise in sensing boundaries, living under Soviet annexation and keeping the original culture alive, also benefitted from the experiences of organizers of the Song Celebrations.

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Notes 1

Sarv, E. (2008). Juulivalimised 1940 kui rahvusliku vastupanuvõitluse algus. Kannatuste aastad 1940–1941. (Elections in July 1940 as the beginning of the National Resistance struggle. Years of Sufferings 1940–1941). Part 1. Tallinn: Foundation Valge Raamat, 64. 2 Veidemann, R. (2003). Kirjandus sotsiaalse sidususe tegurina. Eesti juhtum. // Võim ja kultuur. (Literature as a factor of social cohesion. The case of Estonia. // The Power and Culture). Tartu: Estonian Literary Museum, The Centre of Cultural History and Folkloristics in Estonia, 163. 3 Kasekamp, A. (2011). Balti riikide ajalugu. (The History of the Baltic States). Tallinn: Varrak, 204; Raag, I. (2011). “Psühholoogiline kaitse kui hingamise vorm?” (Psychological protection as a form of breathing?). Postimees, 28 May. 4 Kuutma, K. (2003). Teadusliku analüüsi ja ülevaate koostamine Eesti, Läti ja Leedu laulu- ja tantsupidude ning Kihnu kultuuriruumi kohta. (Scientific Analysis and Review of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Song and Dance Celebrations and Kihnu’s Cultural Space). Tallinn. 5 Vettik, T. (1928). “Mõtteid tulevastest laulupidudest”. (Reflections on the upcoming Song Celebrations ). Muusikaleht 6/7, 174–181. 6 Ojaveski, T., Puust, M. & Põldmäe, A. (Ed.) (2002). 130 aastat eesti laulupidusid. (130 years of Estonian Song Celebrations). Talmar ja Põhi. 7 Põldmäe, R. (1969). Esimene Eesti üldlaulupidu 1869. (The First Estonian Song Celebration 1869). Tallinn: Eesti Raamat; Põldmäe, R. (1976). Kaks laulupidu 1879–1880. (Two Song Celebrations 1879–1880). Tallinn: Eesti Raamat; Ojaveski et al. (2002). 8 “Nõukogudeaegsete üldlaulupidude köögipoolelt”. (Backstage of Soviet-era Song Celebrations). Laulupeo Muusikaleht, special edition. June, 1994. See also: Kuutma, K. (1996). “Laulupeod rahvusliku identiteedi kandjana”. (Song Celebrations as a Carrier of the National Identity). Mäetagused 1&2. http://www.folklore.ee/tagused/nr1/internet.htm [2012-01-08]. 9 Tammela, H. & Liivik, O. (2010). “Kas Eesti lähiajaloos on endiselt ‘valgeid laike’”? (Do gaps remain in Estonian history? Discussion). Tuna 4, 131. 10 Kuutma, K. (2003). Teadusliku analüüsi ja ülevaate koostamine Eesti, Läti ja Leedu laulu- ja tantsupidude ning Kihnu kultuuriruumi kohta. (Scientific Analysis and Review of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Song and Dance Celebrations and Kihnu’s Cultural Space). Tallinn; Kuutma (1996). 11 Raga, A.M. (2009/2010). “Social Role of Choral Singing”. Sounds in Europe 5, 12–13. 12 Graf, M. et al. (2004). XX sajandi kroonika. II osa 1940–1961, Maailm. (The Chronicle of XX century. Chapter 2. 1940–1961, The World). Tallinn: Eesti Entsüklopeediakirjastus, 8–9. 13 ERA. R-1958-1-12-1958-1-81. – Riigiarhiiv (ERA), ENSV Heliloojate Liit. 1947–1953. (State Archives. R-1958 Composers’ Union of ESSR. 1947–1953). 14 Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books, 89. 15 Kuutma (1996).

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16 Randjärv, L. (2013). “Intellectual occupation and collaborationism in the cultural life of Estonia”. Trames 1, 13–15. See also: Ojaveski et al. (2002). 17 Lott, J. (1982). Õigus kultuurisaavutuste kasutamisele. (The Right to enjoy Cultural Benefits). Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 3. 18 Barkalaja, A. (2007). “Identiteet ühiskondliku ja isikulise vahelülina: efektiivse keha mõiste kasutusvõimalusi”. (Identity as a link between the social and the personal: the effective use of the concept of body options). In: Arukask, M. (Ed.). Muutused, erinevused ja kohanemised eesti kultuuriruumis ja selle naabruses. (Change and Adapt to the Differences in Estonian Culture and its Neighbourhood). Viljandi: University of Tartu, Viljandi Culture Academy, 168. 19 The analysis is based on the programs published in the Song Celebration album “130 years of Estonian Song Celebrations”. See the album pages 116–207; the homepage of Tartu Song Celebration Museum http://laulupidu.tartu.ee/muuseum [2012-01]. 20 The repertoire of the General Song Celebrations of 1869–1938 is mapped by Vello Salo. 21 “Ɍɨɪɠɟɫɬɜɨ ɪɭɫɫɤɢɯ ɷɫɬɨɧɰɟɜ. Ɉɬɝɨɥɨɫɤɢ ɧɚɪɨɞɧɚɝɨ ɩɟɜɱɚɫɤɚɝɨ ɩɪɚɡɞɧɢɤɚ ɜ ɘɪɴɟɜɟ”. (Celebration of Russian Estonians. Echoes of the Song Celebration in Yuryev). ɇɨɜɶ. ɂɥɥɸɫɬɪɢɪɨɜɚɧɧɵɣ ɞɜɭɯɧɟɞɟɥɶɧɵɣ ȼɟɫɬɧɢɤ. ɋ.-ɉɟɬɟɪɛɭɪɝɆɨɫɤɜɚ, Ɍɨɜɚɪɢɳɟɫɬɜɨ M.O. ȼɨɥɴɮ, 1895, 276–278. 22 Andresen, N. (1946). Kõne 12. üldlaulupeo koorijuhtide kursuse lõppaktusel 25. VIII 1946. (The Speech held during the Inauguration Ceremony of the 12th Song Celebration courses for choir conductors). Tallinn: XII üldlaulupeo teataja, 183. Nigol Andresen (1899–1985), writer, literary scientist, critic, translator and politician, one of the best-known June Communists. The Minister of Foreign Affairs in Johannes Vares’s government in 1940. Since 1940 the People’s Commissar of Education of the Estonian SSR, the vice-president of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Estonian SSR from 1940 until 1946. He was also one of the initiators of the Yaroslavl’s artistic ensembles. Andresen was arrested and sent to the prison camp in Siberia 1950–1955. Andresen died in Tartu. He has written monographs on August Bachmann and Hommikteater (1966), Friedebert Tuglas (1968), Hilda Gleser (1971), etc. 23 Valge, J. (2011). “Punasest stalinistiks. Nigol Andreseni noorusaastad”. (From a ‘red’ to stalinist. The early years of Nigol Andresen). Looming 10, 1450. 24 Andresen (1946), 183. 25 Andresen (1946), 183. 26 See: Vettik, T. (Ed.) (1942). “Eesti XII Tänu-üldlaulupeo segakoori laulud”. (The Songs for Mixed Choirs of the 12th Thanksgiving Song Celebration of Estonia). Tallinn: Eesti Kirjastus (Eesti Lauljate Liidu Toimetused; 2). In 1939 Estonian Singers’ Union had already planned the XII General Song Celebration for 1943. During German occupation the organization of the festival became an issue again with a plan to hold it on Midsummer Day, so the music was printed and the choirs registered. The Song Celebration did not take place because of the defeat of Germany under Stalingrad; Vettik, T. (1945). “XII üldlaulupidu 1947”. (The 12th Song Celebration). Sirp ja Vasar, 15 December, 6.

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Vettik, T. (1947). “Algab XII üldlaulupeo teine segakooride eelproovide ring”. (The second round of the rehearsals for mixed choirs is about to begin). Sirp ja Vasar, 12 April, 5. 28 Allandi, M. (2009). Laulupidu kui rituaal: Eesti üldlaulupeod rahvusliku kultuurimälu ja identiteedi kujundajate ja kandjatena. (Song Celebration as a ritual: Song Celebrations – Carriers of cultural memory and national identity). Master’s thesis. Tallinn: Tallinn University, Estonian Institute of Humanities. 29 Kiisk, H. (1982). “Tuudur Vettiku saatusest okupatsioonide ajal”. (On the fate of Tuudur Vettik during occupations). Teataja, 26 June, 6. 30 “130 Years of the Estonian Song Celebrations”, 114–115. 31 “130 Years of the Estonian Song Celebrations”, 116. 32 ERA. R-1205-(1)2-221. L 34, 35. [The texts of banned and permitted songs] 1946. ERA. R-1205-(1)2-269. [The texts of banned and permitted songs] 1947. I folder (pp. 1902–2061). Riigiarhiiv, R-1205, ENSV Kunstide Valitsus. (State Archives. Department of the Arts of ESSR). Mart Saar’s “Mis need ohjad meida hoidvad” (Why Do These Reins Hold Us) was in the program of VIII and XI General Song Celebration. See also: “130 Years of the Estonian Song Celebrations”, 75, 107. 33 There was a comment to the resolution: Comrade Mesilane, To allow the amended texts. H. Piilmann; “130 Years of the Estonian Song Celebrations”, 116. Mart Saar’s “Ihkasime ikkest lahti” (We Craved Freedom from Oppression) openly speaking of the loss of freedom. 34 “130 Years of the Estonian Song Celebrations”, 174. 35 Polianovsky, G. (1947). “Väikse maa suur kultuur”. (Great culture of a small nation). Sirp ja Vasar, 2 August; XII Album of the General Song Celebration (1948). Tallinn: RK Ilukirjandus ja Kunst, 132. 36 Anton Vaarandi (until 1940 Anton Vahtmann; 1901–1979), Estonian journalist and a statesman of the ESSR; Georg Abels (1898–1967), People’s Commissar on agriculture of the ESSR, member of the ECP since 1921; Aleksander Valsiner (1903–1972), pedagogue and a figure of education, a Merited Teacher of the ESSR (1945); August Saukas was the leader of reconstruction works in 1948 in Tallinn. 37 ERA. R-1958-1-17. L 49–62. Riigiarhiiv. [XIII The protocol of the meeting of composers and poets summoned by the Principal Committee of the General Song Celebration, 1 October 1948]. State Archives. R-1958 Composers’ Union of ESSR. 38 Aleksander Kelberg (1911–1972 d in Tyumen), 1946–1949 head of the sector of journalism at the EC(b)P CC’s propaganda and agitation department; 1951–1952 Director of the Estonian History Museum; thrown out of the party in 1952. Aleksander Ansberg (1909–1975), statesman of the ESSR; 1953–1963 ESSR Minister of Culture. Leonid Lentsman (1912–1996), statesman of the ESSR; 1950– 1951 ESSR Minister of Education; 1953–1964 ECP CC’s II Secretary and head of the ideology department; 1964–1971 ECP CC Secretary; 1971–1982 Chairman of the Council of ERRS Trade Unions. 39 Karl Leinus (1889–1968), choirmaster and music pedagogue. Leopold Vigla (1900–1974), conductor and music pedagogue. 40 Randjärv, L. (2012). “Intervjuud: Ants Üleoja”. In: Randjärv, L. Sillad üle piiride. (Bridges Across Borders). Tallinn: SE&JS Publishers, 187–205.

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41 Arno Kallikorm (1915–1992), choirmaster; one of the founders and the choirmaster (1945–1962) of the Academic Male Choir of the Tallinn University of Technology (TAM). Hugo Kirdelaht, organist, conductor, music pedagogue. Ants Kiilaspea (1909–1974), choirmaster, music pedagogue. Jaan Kääramees (1921– 1968), conductor and music pedagogue. Aleksei Stepanov, director of the ESSR musical foundation. 42 ERA. R-1958-1-38. Riigiarhiiv. [EN HL protocols of the meetings of the board] 1950–1952. State Archives. R-1958 Composers’ Union of ESSR. 43 Kõrvits, H. (Ed.) (1950). XIII üldlaulupeo laule. Part VI. Tallinn: Eesti Riiklik Kirjastus. 44 Leinus, Karl (1889–1968), choir conductor and music teacher. 45 See: Diagram 2. 46 Mall Johanson (b 1935, née Rummo), biologist, long-standing language editor for publishing house Valgus, singer in various choirs, has compiled several books. See: http://tartu.postimees.ee/210606/tartu_postimees/varia/206558.php [2012-0123]. 47 KlotiƼš, A. (1990). “Laulupidu kui probleem”. (Song Celebration as a problem). Teater. Muusika. Kino 3, 20. 48 Mall Johanson’s recollections to the author on 23 January 2013. 49 Veidemann, R. (1993). Mälestus “Seitsmendast rahukevadest”. Mälestus Golfi hoovusest. Artikleid, esseid, pihtimusi 1986–1993. (Memory of The Seventh Spring of Peace. [about Estonian writer Viivi Luik’s novel “Seitsmes rahukevad”, 1985]. Memory of the Gulf Stream. Articles, essays, confessions 1986–1993). Loomingu Raamatukogu 41–43, 57. 50 Randjärv, L. (1984). Üliõpilaslaulupidude Gaudeamus ajaloost. (History of the Student Song Celebrations). Term paper. Supervisor Edgar Mattisen, Tallinn Conservatoire. 51 Pick, J. (2008). “Edasijõudnud valitsuste motiivid”. In: Kivilo, A. & Birnkraut, G. (Ed.). Valik artikleid kultuuri-poliitikast. (Motives of advanced governments. A Study of Government Arts Policies from Ancient Greece to the Present). Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus, 12. 52 Loorits, O. (1951). Eestluse elujõud. (The Estonian Vitality). Stockholm: Tõrvik, 132.

CHAPTER FIVE ‘GRÜß GOTT MIT HELLEM KLANG!’ THE MEDIALISATION IN FILMS OF THE BOURGEOIS LAY CHOIR MOVEMENT IN THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC HELMKE JAN KEDEN

Introduction Using films as a gateway to historical understanding of the world of a given group of singers, I would like to present a method that has only recently been adopted in historical research. The reason for this is that in traditional historical research until the ‘cultural turn’ of the 1980s, the written word was usually the norm in any approach to analysing historical phenomena and events.1 What motivated me to explore this topic further was the discovery of three historical films, all made at the end of the Weimar Republic. 1. Made in 1928, the silent film ‘Das deutsche Lied’ honoured the societal status and historical significance of German songwriting. The film was scripted by Ferdinand Schneider and William Torge and directed by Karl Pindl. 2. The documentary ‘Das Deutsche Sängerbundesfest in Wien 1928’, was a silent film about the 10th German Choir Singers Festival that was held between July 19th and July 22nd in Vienna. The film was produced in Döring Film Studios in Hanover and was also directed by Karl Pindl. 3. ‘Grüß Gott mit hellem Klang’, a soundtracked film, was a documentary about the 11th German Choir Singers’ Festival that took place from July 21st to July 24th in 1932 in Frankfurt. The film

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was also produced in Döring Film Studios in Hanover and directed by August Koch. These films are part of the first surviving cineastic sources that deal exhaustively with choirs and choir music in the German-speaking world. They can be regarded as indicative of the high social status of choir singing at the time.2 All these films were financed for propaganda purposes by the Deutscher Sängerbund (DSB), the largest association of German male choir singers.

Methodology Before analysing the film material in detail we need to answer the question of how to approach the subject-matter. Namely, to what extent and why would studying historical films along particular lines serve the purposes of historical research? It is only in recent years that scientific disciplines have paid more attention to this question, since there has been and still is considerable reluctance to the inclusion of historical films as sources. The following arguments have been put forward in the discussion:3 A. As a medium of expression the film appeals less to the intellect and more to the emotions – which have no place in science. B. The effect of biased and subjective influences on film production is much higher than in written sources. C. Most of the films were made for commercial purposes, so they would probably not reflect history truthfully, like most films. Even if numerous authors have been able to refute objections to using films as historical sources in recent decades, and even if we can observe a modernisation of attitudes with regard to films in historical science, the debate on this matter is not over.4 Discussion of the pros and cons of using historical film material versus the written word tends to revolve around the question of authenticity. To what extent can films present a different, perhaps better picture of real history than that given by the static, written word? Generally, a film produced with a clear authorial intention (e.g. a newspaper article) can only ever be a construct. One would suppose that, with its various levels of physical perception, a film also has to be deciphered in far greater detail than a text that is multi-layered and open to interpretation. It is only recently that methodical tools have been applied which stem from disciplines that have been used in film analysis. We are talking about

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the scientific study of culture, of films and the media, media psychology, literature, and sociology. In my quest for a useful and legitimate method I discovered a recent, and in my opinion convincingly written, dissertation published by Wiebke Glowatz of Düsseldorf University in 2009. In it she takes David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson’s, Werner Faulstich’s and Werner Barg’s applied methods as a starting-point and develops an approach feasibly analysing historical film material as if it reflected the history of media culture. In her dissertation, which includes a ‘Book of Methods for Film Analysis’, Glowatz opens the discussion by stating that analysis, on the basis of historical-scientific methods, can only succeed if plots, characters, the instruments of film-making and the contexts of their production are all given equal consideration.5 Using the film ‘Taking Sides – Der Fall Furtwängler’ as an example, Glowatz uses her methods to compile an analysis that is entirely plausible. Her analytical methods may not only be applied to the genre itself but also to documentary films in general. I would, therefore, like to present the most important aspects of Glowatz’s publication on film analysis and the approach she takes, one of a number of equally valid methods of film analysis. Her method of historical film analysis can be summarised into three areas, which are listed below.

Criticism of sources6 The first area is the usual criticism of written sources, and this method can easily be applied to film analysis. 1. Title, production date, location, author, director 2. Questions of versions, completeness, censure and financing 3. Questions of authenticity and originality 4. Language-specific aspects of the film 5. Questions about the target group, different target groups, and the aim of the film. 6. Post-showing assessment (audience figures, criticisms, types of audience, and film critiques) 7. Questions of objectivity Thus the question of authenticity and the (re)construction of the past is paramount. The core problem here is that in films, particularly in documentaries, the film is edited in a way that makes emotional identification possible, but only in a particular direction. The problem becomes apparent when one realises that what is portrayed is what the

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film-maker considers to be reality. This critical point should be uppermost in our minds when we view the presentation of reality, for example on television. It is not only about reproducing reality, it is much more about the illusion of authenticity.

Film material The second part of the analysis is the film material itself. In the absence of a multi-disciplinary methodology one is obliged in most cases to take a highly subjective analytical approach to the complexities of soundtrack, narration and configuration. Some aspects of a film can be easily categorised, but execution of the analysis can be extremely timeconsuming. A basic knowledge of film-making is essential; without this it would not be possible to compile a descriptive basis of material with which to itemise different interpretive approaches. Glowatz postulates the inclusion of the following points as forming precisely such a basis:7 1. Facts relating to the film: director, script, camera operator, producer, locations, financiers, epoch, film material, picture format, soundtrack, colour scheme, original language version, premiere, viewer age rating, version, cinema version 2. Analysis of the plot (course of the plot): a. Narration (story time and film duration) b. Dramaturgy (plot, narrative perspective/storyboard and camera angles) 3. Characters and their roles: concepts of identity and roles, analysis of societal conditions, patterns of social behaviour, characterisation of self, of others, of narrative through the choice of perspective, setting, and music 4. Means of portrayal and film techniques (formal presentation, conventions, picture format) a. Mise en scene: scenery, artwork, staging, interpretation by the audience, cultural codes, costume, contrast, colour, lighting, non-verbal communication b. Camera techniques: frame construction, camera field size, camera viewpoint, and camera angle adjustment c. Montage (editing techniques) d. Soundtrack, sound effects, accompanying commentary and music

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Interpretation After presenting the results of intensive research, Glowatz concludes her book of methods on historical film analysis with the third part, the interpretation of her results. Here are the most important points:8 1. Film-immanent aspects of interpretation: viewer identification, spatial and temporal disposition, filmic codes, montages and structures of meaning 2. Historical-political context 3. Socio-cultural background and expectations of the viewer 4. Research into film critiques 5. Politics of the film (propaganda and censure) 6. Economic aspects 7. Film-historical context (genre) 8. Styles/epochs (intertextuality, contexts of tradition) 9. Historical-technical context (techniques developed, silent/talking film) 10. Historical-biographical context 11. Concluding interpretation This summary may suffice to illustrate Glowatz’s approach which in my opinion presents a legitimate interpretation and analysis of historical film material as a history of media culture.

Examples Criticism of sources First I would like to demonstrate how the criticism of sources can be applied to a number of excerpts from the film ‘Grüß Gott mit hellem Klang’, which was made to commemorate the 11th German Choir Singers’ Association Festival that took place in Frankfurt in 1932 from July 11th to 24th. As mentioned earlier, it was directed by August Koch at Döring Film Studios in Hanover.

Questions about versions and completeness At the time of the Singers’ Festival in 1932 in Frankfurt, Karl Hammerschmidt, the then President of the German Singers’ Association, who at the age of 67 had taken up office after a financial scandal in 1929, died in Munich shortly after the festival. This fact helps us to date the

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currently available version of the film more precisely: namely, a part of this film is missing that was expressly mentioned in later film critiques.9 Thus the very first critical review written by the secretary of the German Singers Association Newspaper (Deutsche Sängerbundeszeitung), Franz Josef Ewens, comments on a commemorative speech held by the vicepresident Georg Brauner on September 3rd, 1932, in honour of the late Karl Hammerschmidt. However, I was unable to locate this speech anywhere in the film. This also explains the discrepancy between the duration of the extant film and the original version, which must have been dealt with by the censor.10 Nine minutes of the film are missing, so the extant version of the film is probably not the authorised final edition but only a preview that must have been released between the end of July and the beginning of September. And the director, August Koch, seems to have made changes to the film, which premiered in the cinema at Hanover on October 9th in the same year.11

Questions of authenticity, originality, handling of historical facts and objectivity The film itself is structured into: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

The front credits A welcoming speech by Georg Brauner Welcoming the singers / presenting the banner Rally at St. Paul’s Church Open-air concerts Mass rallies The third main concert Festive procession (without the commemorative speech) The passage of departing singers / the ceremony at the Niederwald Memorial 10. Rally at the ‘Deutsches Eck’

If we compare this structure with the festival programme from surviving written sources, we will see that selected events appear in the film.12 At first this seems entirely logical since, after all, the time available for producing the film was very limited. But it is interesting that this selection is complemented by the inclusion of filmed recordings of events that did not take place at the festival at all, but which are essential when we consider what the film is intended to achieve. We might call this a

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limitation of truth. By way of an example we could mention that the film opens with the welcoming speech held by Georg Brauner, the VicePresident of the German Singers’ Association, an event that was recorded in the studios after the festival had been put on celluloid, following the death of the previous president, Karl Hammerschmidt. In his opening speech Georg Brauner praises the ‘tremendous achievements of the German Singers’ Association, its non-aligned, unpolitical character and as a unifying force’.13 Moreover he explains the regional and historical background of Frankfurt am Main – the city of Goethe where the festival was staged in 1932 and whose citizens were joyously preparing for the arrival of a host of singers. Brauner’s speech sets the stage for what was to be portrayed in the film and conjures up an illusion of authenticity that would look quite different if it were not set against this backdrop. The same applies to the film sequences listed in Sections 9 and 10, which portray the singers departing in boats down the River Rhine as well as the rallies at the Niederwald Monument and the ‘Deutsches Eck’ in Koblenz. Here, too, we can see images that do not explicitly belong to the Frankfurt Festival. However, their inclusion does have a metaphorical impetus which I will discuss in detail later. Further questions of objectivity can, therefore, be analysed on the basis of linear aspects: making a film of an event such as the Frankfurt Festival turns it into a story with a beginning and an ending. There is an introduction that outlines the direction in which the interpretation is to move, and there are moments of tension – so the film acquires its own dynamic, complete with climax and resolution. There is little room for alternative interpretations. There is only one definitive version. The past is portrayed as a one-dimensional entity and thus may well be entirely different from what a participant experienced who really was there at the time the festival took place. This problem of linearity can be illustrated on the basis of a quantitative analysis of the film, and corroborated by comparing the actual film time taken up by the scenes that we have mentioned. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

The front credits 0:01–0:42 (41’) A welcoming speech by Georg Brauner 0:43–5:45 (5:02) Welcoming the singers / presenting the banner5:56–14:32 (8:36) Rally at St. Paul’s Church 14:33–14:50 (17’) Open-air concerts 14:51–17:47 (2:58) Mass rallies in the stadium 17:48–19:44 (1:56) The third main concert 19:45–26:33 (6:48)

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8. Procession (without the commemorative speech) 26:34–57:57 (31:23) 9. Singers departing / the Niederwald ceremony 57:58–59:19 (1:23) 10. Rally at the ‘Deutsches Eck’ 59:20–1:01:00 (1:40) We can see that the longest continuous part of the film is not taken up by a recording of the artistic performances, as one would expect: after all the film is the very first soundtrack document of its time. On the contrary, most of the film – in fact, over half of it – is taken up by the festive procession. For dramaturgical reasons this may be understandable in the previously made silent films about singing festivals. However, the continuation of this tradition in the first soundtrack film makes it obvious that the traditionally high significance of the festive procession in the German Singers’ Association, the largest lay choir singers association, nationalistic and conservative in character, can not be underestimated in relation to the status of the artistic performances.14 At the traditional climax of every single singing festival, the procession symbolised the bond felt by each individual singer with the organisation as a whole.15 This was taken into consideration by the makers of the film, even if for many active participants in the festival other events may have been much more important. It is thus possible to draw direct conclusions about the communicative intentions of the people making the film from the results of purely formal, technical analysis. But from a contextual point of view this emphasis on the procession can be interpreted in another way: we know that the authorities in Frankfurt had security concerns about rioting which, in view of the politically charged atmosphere of the 1930s, could happen as a result of, for example, the wearing in public of party political emblems, and they only gave the green light for the festival shortly before it was due to take place.16 In this way the festival could be celebrated as a victory for the spirit of a nationalistic community of singers, thus emboldened, who were accorded a correspondingly lengthy amount of film time. One can take a similar view when viewing the part of the film that takes up the briefest amount of film time: the account of the national German rally in the historic St. Paul’s Church of Frankfurt. In numerous articles in the singers’ journals this rally is treated as an extremely important event at which the political will to merge with what many thought was Germany’s brother nation, namely Austria, is openly postulated.17 In the film the rally is all over in seventeen seconds. In those politically charged times with the political left openly fighting the political

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right, the situation was bordering on civil war. Such openness might well have been the reason for censuring this part of the film in this way.

Material available for ‘Grüß Gott mit hellem Klang’ According to Glowatz’s methodology, after concluding the criticism of the sources, one would continue by analysing the historical film material itself. Here, too, analytically useful excerpts can be found.

Characters and their roles A scene from the third main concert, which was performed at the Festive Hall on July 24th will exemplify this area of research. What is interesting is how the emotionalising film shots of the way in which the mass choirs, conducted by Gustav Wohlgemuth and Viktor Kehldorfer, are embedded in brief front credits and post credits scenes. In the front credits shot, the conductors are seen chatting casually with their colleague Robert Laugs; in the post-credits scene Viktor Kehldorfer’s wife asks about how the concert went and Gustav Wohlgemuth congratulates Kehldorfer on the success of the event. What we see here is an ambivalent juxtaposition of populistic familiarity on the one hand, and heroic leadership of the mass choirs during the performances on the other.18

Means of representation and cinematic techniques Regarding the means of representation and cinematic techniques I would like to mention a part of the film whose subject is the open air concerts at the Bismarck Monument in Frankfurt. Just like at the beginning of the film, the communicative strategy of the next part of the film section is realised by the narrator Georg Brauner who, speaking offstage about the ‘undiminished reverence for the former Chancellor of the Reich’, makes the next part of the film create the impression that choir singing was of great significance in the era of Kaiser Wilhelm. The relation between cinematic image and the song ‘Kapitän und Leutnant’ by Hans Heinrichs, which is sung by the choirs of the Obererzgebirge Singers Association becomes obvious when the statue of Bismarck, the former ‘Captain of the Reich,’ is shown astride his horse and the choir sings: Wie kommen die Soldaten in den Himmel, Kapitän und Leutenant, auf einem weißen Schimmel, so reiten die Soldaten in den Himmel (How do soldiers get to heaven? / Astride a white horse do soldiers get to heaven!).

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The same can be said of the second song, the third stanza of the patriotic song ‘Deutschland, Dir mein Vaterland’ (Germany, my fatherland), also set to music by Hans Heinrichs. When the final stanza is repeated, the monument to Bismarck is filmed in full view.19 A further example of the use of special effects, in particular camera angles, becomes apparent during the procession of singers, that is, the shot that takes up the greatest part of the film. On the one hand the camera is positioned in classic static mode and shows from various angles the singers processing past the cheering masses. The most frequently used angle is the one where the singers process along a right-hand bend in the road, shouting the traditional German greeting ‘Heil!’ right in front of the camera lens. While these static camera angles make the cinema audience feel that they are watching the procession from a distance, the mobile camera shots taken from the procession carriage form a clear contrast. The numerous sweeping shots of the cheering masses make the viewers feel as if they are taking part in a live broadcast of the festival. The viewer is removed from the role of a passive onlooker and becomes a real, live member of the parade cheered on by the emotionalised mass of spectators. What is interesting is that, apart from a fleeting preview, this camera sweep only appears after a dramaturgical caesura in the middle of the parade scene, where the ritual of honouring the fallen is observed. To the sound of bells ringing, the entire parade stops at four o’clock for a full two minutes, all flags are lowered, and all the musicians play the dirge ‘Ich hat’ einen Kameraden’, (I once had a comrade-in-arms). Not until the scenes of cheering onlookers does the audience view the spectacle in numerous shots taken from the rolling parade wagon. The director’s intention seems to be to make one feel like an active member of the singers’ movement, and consciously aware of all their hard work and sacrifice for the nation.20 To conclude this section about the means of presentation I would like to mention two shots of the parade which make it clear that the whole event is not – as the organisers wanted, and for obvious reasons – seen by the participants as a national but otherwise unpolitical event. We notice this when we listen carefully to the soundtrack that is audible during the long shot of the procession. Even cursory examination of the soundtrack reveals that several single shots have been strung together and repeated over and over, like an endless loop, perhaps in order to influence the viewer’s emotions. This is particularly interesting because in one constantly repeated shot the people can be heard shouting ‘Heil Hitler!’.

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This shot is of particular interest because in articles published, not only before and during but also after the festival, the leadership of the German Singers’ Association placed great emphasis on political non-alignment, entirely in accordance with the traditional nature of the event.21 Without these restrictions the authorities, who were worried about the risk of riots breaking out, would never have permitted the festival to go ahead. So because the leadership of the German Singers’ Association both instigated and financed the festival and thus bore overall responsibility, we can see that their image of self-imposed non-alignment is flawed. The idea of national socialism is never advocated explicitly in the film, as was the case from spring 1933 onwards.22 The emotive scenes and the constantly repeated ‘Heil Hitlers’, therefore, indicate that at this time of extreme political sensitivity the DSB leadership deviated from its traditionally neutral position. Furthermore, by using the subtle instrument of the new medium, the film made its contribution to radical political development.23 In view of the fact that the film was a resounding success in cinemas throughout Germany,24 it becomes obvious that the German Singers’ Association leadership were able to reach the conservative-bourgeois hearts and minds of their target audience.

Interpretation Having presented a variety of interpretations of this film, I would like to conclude by mentioning the final scene as an example of the multi-layered nature of the dissemination of ideas and their interpretation through the medium of the film. It is interesting that the film does not end with the supposed climax of most singing festivals – the parade, as do the other two films mentioned at the beginning of my paper. The final scene is introduced by Georg Brauner speaking offstage and shows singers paying their respects at the traditional national monuments. Thus, metaphorically speaking, they transport their national consciousness, emboldened by their experiences at the festival, to the furthest corners of the country and lend their voices to them on their visits to the commemorative monuments: the founding of the German Reich, the monument in Niederwald and the ‘Deutsches Eck’ in Koblenz, among others. There the film ends in a cloud of pathos intended to motivate the audience, in the words of Georg Brauner, ‘to consecrate heart and hand to our dearly beloved Fatherland’.25 These words spoken by Brauner make it clear that the film is less about reliving the past than about an appeal to the audience to tackle the tasks of the future, which every single participant in the festival would have internalised. These words come alive through the

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manner in which the film is produced and edited. At the Niederwald Monument the choirs are shown as fulfilling their task – singing – just like in the rest of the film. At the end of the journey, however, the scene at the ‘Deutsches Eck’ in Koblenz, is entirely different. For the first and only time in the film the singers are shown as a silent but good-humoured majority; offstage we hear music for the first time – the German national anthem repeated from a previous scene – and the emotional rally of 40,000 people at Frankfurt Stadium. Metaphorically speaking, the ‘consecration’ intoned by Georg Brauner has taken place. The souls of all the singers have been imbued with the awareness that the Germans are a nation. At the end of this paper I hope that I have been able to demonstrate how the analysis of historical film material can extend the range of sources available to us in our chosen field of choir research. Instead of formulating a conclusion I would like to emphasise the importance of a comprehensive basis for research by again quoting Wiebke Glowatz: [In a film] the psychological mechanisms and dispositions of an ideational regression of the audience are revealed. Emotions can be portrayed and manipulated. The members of the audience may absorb societal norms and sociocultural codes that are implied or even conveyed unconsciously. Thus, as a mass medium, a film can play a not insignificant role in the formation of the identity of individuals or collectives. One may assume that a mass audience will sense the appeal of a film and – if the film is a success – that the hopes and fears and the emotional needs of the viewers are encapsulated and administered to. It is in this manner that the film becomes a legitimate candidate for research into the history of mentality.26

Notes 1

Cf. Glowatz, W. (2009). Filmanalyse als Erweiterung der historischen Hilfswissenschaften. Eine Studie am Beispiel des Spielfilms “Taking Sides – Der Fall Furtwängler”. Diss. Düsseldorf: Online-Ressource, 10–41. 2 On the significance of choir singing in the Weimar Republic cf. Klenke, D. (1998). Der singende “deutsche Mann”. Gesangvereine und deutsches Nationalbewußtsein von Napoleon bis Hitler. Münster: Waxmann, 181–190. 3 Cf. Glowatz (2009), 21ff. 4 Glowatz (2009), 20. 5 Glowatz (2009), 48ff. 6 Glowatz (2009), 51–61. 7 Glowatz (2009), 61–88. 8 Glowatz (2009), 89–105. 9 Cf. Ewens, F.J. (1932). “Das XI. Deutsche Sängerbundesfest auf der Leinwand. Ein Monumentalfilm der Döring-Filmwerke-Hannover”. Deutsche Sängerbundeszeitung 24 (36), 563.

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10 Cf. Hasenclever, F. (1932). “Grüß Gott mit hellem Klang... / Erstaufführung des Sängerfest-Tonfilms in Köln”. Deutsche Sängerbundeszeitung 24 (45), 713–714. 11 Cf. Wulf, G. (1932). “Erfolgreiche Uraufführung des Tonfilms vom 11. Deutschen Sängerbundesfest”. Deutsche Sängerbundeszeitung 24 (42), 665. 12 Der Festausschuß für das XI. Deutsche Sängerbundesfest Frankfurt a. M. (1932). Festführer für das XI. Deutsche Sängerbundesfest Frankfurt am Main 21. Bis 24. Juli 1932. Frankfurt a.M.: H.L. Brönner’s Druckerei. 13 Cf. Koch, A. (1932). “Grüß Gott mit hellem Klang, film of the 11th German Choir Singers Festival July 21st to July 24th in 1932 in Frankfurt”. Hanover: Döring Film Studios, 0:00:43–0:05:45. 14 Cf. Ewens, F.J. (1932).“Brauchen wir Massenaufführungen und Festzug bei unseren Sängerfesten?”. Deutsche Sängerbundeszeitung 24 (25), 387. 15 Cf. Röntz, W. (1932). “Der Festzug”. Deutsche Sängerbundeszeitung 24 (31), 487–488. 16 Vgl. O.A. (1932). “Bundesamtliche Mitteilungen 143”. Deutsche Sängerbundeszeitung 24 (29), 450. 17 Cf. O.A. (1932). “Die volksdeutschen Veranstaltungen des Sängerfestes”. Deutsche Sängerbundeszeitung 24 (32), 499–500. 18 Cf. Ewens, F.J. (1932). “Drittes Hauptkonzert”. Deutsche Sängerbundeszeitung 24 (31), 486–487. 19 Cf. Der Festausschuß (1932), 87. 20 Cf. Klenke (1998), 97–180. 21 Cf. Brauner, G. (1932). “Tag des Volkstums”. Festblätter für das XI. Deutsche Sängerbundesfest Frankfurt am Main 11 (3), 38; Hammerschmidt, K. (1932). “Das XI. Deutsche Sängerbundesfest”. Festblätter für das XI. Deutsche Sängerbundesfest Frankfurt am Main 7 (10/11), 149; Ewens, F.J. (1932). “Krise des Männerchors – Krise der Vereine?”. Deutsche Sängerbundeszeitung 24 (36), 566. 22 Cf. Brauner, G. (1933). “Dem neuen deutschen Reich!”. Deutsche Sängerbundeszeitung 25 (13), 217. 23 Only in a review of the 12th Singers’ Association Festival in Breslau in 1937 do we find reports of singers shouting ‘Heil Hitler!’ at the Frankfurt Festival of 1932. Cf. Damm, K. (1937). “Das ganze Deutschland soll es sein! Der Festzug wird zu einer großdeutschen Kundgebung”. Mitteldeutsche Sängerbundeszeitung 13 (8/9), 94. 24 Cf. O.A. (1932). “Kleine Nachrichten”. Deutsche Sängerbundeszeitung 24 (47), 746; O.A. (1932). “Kleine Nachrichten”. Deutsche Sängerbundeszeitung 24 (49), 780. 25 Koch, A. (1932). “Grüß Gott mit hellem Klang, film of the 11th German Choir Singers Festival July 21st to July 24th in 1932 in Frankfurt”. Hanover: Döring Film Studios, 0:59:48–0:59:52. 26 Glowatz (2009), 25.

CHAPTER SIX THE 19TH IN THE 21ST CENTURY? THE GERMAN MALE CHOIR BLOCK BUSTER DIE WACHT AM RHEIN AND ITS MEDIALITY ON YOUTUBE MARTIN LOESER

The male choir song Die Wacht am Rhein was one of the most successful pieces of choral music in 19th century Germany. The poem by Max Schneckenburger dates from 1840 and deals with the German Guard on the Rhine, which aimed to protect the German Nation against possible French aggression: the Rhine, the most German of all rivers, will never become French. The work’s success as a piece of choral music is illustrated by several facts. For example, in 1858 it was incorporated into the Allgemeines Deutsches Kommersbuch, the most important song book of numerous student associations; and in 1906 it became part of the Kaiserliederbuch.1 Furthermore, the song was often performed spontaneously as an unofficial national anthem during the 19th century. Important conditions for the popularity of Die Wacht am Rhein were its specific media. The used media – poem, music, painting and monument converged perfectly with the existing social structures and ideas, which are usually considered as fundamental in the history of the German-speaking countries in the 19th century: the over-emphasized idea of nation, the broad development of male choir societies and the fatal picture of an inherited enmity – ‘Erbfeindschaft’ – between France and Germany. Especially male choirs used songs as a weapon to fight for national unity, while symbolizing this union themselves by their meetings and performances. Against this strongly nationalistic and chauvinistic background, it is very surprising to find Die Wacht am Rhein on the social media platform YouTube, founded in 2005. The song can be viewed here in numerous video clips, which are composed in a variety of ways. Due to the new

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media, the originally very clearly focused message of the musical work is changing into something new. How can we understand this intriguing development? The idea that the usage of new media can create new meaning has of course been noted before. For example, the media theorist Marshall McLuhan has famously claimed: ‘The medium is the message’.2 But what does he mean? As the media historian Wolfgang Braungart explains, sense and meaning do not exist in a strict way. Human expression, communication and experience are only possible by using means of expression, communication and experience. Any means, and more widely, any kind of human acting, can be taken as a medium or as media. And media, as the etymological sense of the term ‘medium’ suggests, are always somehow in between. On the one hand, media work as a medium with the purpose of realizing cultural expression, while on the other hand they may contain a meaning of their own. Therefore, as Braungart concludes, every cultural expression is in need of realizing itself ‘in something’ and ‘as something’.3 The result of this process is an accumulation of meaning, created by bringing together different media and different layers of sense. This emphasis and accumulation of sense is what we may call mediality. As a methodological consequence, drawn from media theory, it is necessary to examine choir music very carefully. Each of the used media has to be investigated with respect to its material, form and function. Furthermore, we have to ask how the different media work together. Their usage and impact have to be contextualized at different historical points in time, with the purpose of understanding the impact and reception of choir music. Consequently, we have to trace the media history of a piece, from its origins until today. This chapter therefore focuses on the media history of Die Wacht am Rhein, with the aim to clarify its intentions, impact and social functions at different points in history. In a second step, then, the video clips on YouTube will be examined.

Die Wacht am Rhein and its media When studying the essential points in the media history of Die Wacht am Rhein, we have to think, first of all, about its creation by Max Schneckenburger in 1840 (see figure 1). This merchant, who was an inhabitant of the city of Bern, wrote down his heroic poem because he was concerned about the French intentions to annex the Rhine as the eastern

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frontier of France. His main topic was to guard and defend his fatherland’s territory by fighting until the last drop of blood had been sacrificed:4

Figure 1: Die Wacht am Rhein. Poem by Max Schneckenburger (1840) 1 Es braust ein Ruf wie Donnerhall, wie Schwertgeklirr und Wogenprall: Zum Rhein, zum Rhein, zum deutschen Rhein! Wer will des Stromes Hüter sein?

1 The cry resounds like thunder’s peal Like crashing waves and clang of steel: The Rhine, the Rhine, our German Rhine, Who will defend our stream, divine?

Refrain: Lieb Vaterland magst ruhig sein, lieb Vaterland magst ruhig sein: Fest steht und treu die Wacht, die Wacht am Rhein! Fest steht und treu die Wacht, die Wacht am Rhein!

Refrain: Dear fatherland, no fear be thine, Dear fatherland, no fear be thine, Firm and True stands the Watch, the Watch at the Rhine! Firm and True stands the Watch, the Watch at the Rhine!

2 Durch Hunderttausend zuckt es schnell, und aller Augen blitzen hell; der Deutsche, bieder, fromm und stark, beschützt die heil'ge Landesmark.

2 They stand, a hundred thousand strong, Quick to avenge their country’s wrong, With filial love their bosoms swell They shall guard the sacred landmark well.

The 19th in the 21st Century? Refrain

Refrain

3 Er blickt hinauf in Himmelsau'n, da Heldenväter niederschau'n, und schwört mit stolzer Kampfeslust: Du Rhein bleibst deutsch wie meine Brust!

3 He casts his eyes to heaven’s blue, From where past heroes hold the view, And swears pugnaciously the oath, You Rhine and I, stay German, both.

Refrain

Refrain

4 Und ob mein Herz im Tode bricht, wirst du doch drum ein Welscher nicht. Reich, wie an Wasser deine Flut, ist Deutschland ja an Heldenblut!

4 Should my heart not survive this stand, You’ll never fall in foreign hand, Much, as your waters without end, Have we our heroes’ blood to spend.

Refrain

Refrain

5 Solang ein Tropfen Blut noch glüht, noch eine Faust den Degen zieht, und noch ein Arm die Büchse spannt, betritt kein Feind hier deinen Strand!

5 While still remains one breath of life, While still one fist can draw a knife, One gun still fired with one hand, No foe will stand on this Rhine sand.

Refrain

Refrain

6 Der Schwur erschallt, die Woge rinnt die Fahnen flattern hoch im Wind: Am Rhein, am Rhein, am deutschen Rhein wir alle wollen Hüter sein.

6 The oath resounds, on rolls the wave, The banners fly high, proud, and brave, The Rhine, the Rhine, the German Rhine We all shall stand to hold the line.

Refrain

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Schneckenburger illustrated his message by means of impressive and flamboyant pictures: the roaring of thunder, the noise of waves, the sounds of fighting swords, the ancestors of heroes looking down from heaven. And the poem’s simple form, consisting of stanzas followed by a refrain,

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hints at its inherent tendency to transcend the private sphere by means of recitation or singing. Already in 1840, Johann Jakob Mendel, organist and music director at Bern cathedral, created a musical setting of Schneckenburger’s poem. But it only gained popularity in 1854, when Karl Wilhelm brought it into music (see figure 2). Reflecting on this incident from a media history perspective, Wilhelm’s composition marked an important difference in the use of media, since a mixture of media was created by the addition of music. Choir music as a medium had always aimed at a broader group of receivers. And the choir, being a human community and social institution, could function as a symbol, representing the defenders of the Rhine. Last but not least, the music was able to emphasize the poem’s content by creating allusions and emotions. For example, the use of the trumpet at the beginning of the piece and the hymn tone of the refrain are typically meant to produce a religious and elevated atmosphere.5 This ‘sacred mood’, added to the poem’s content by the music, can be considered as something new. And it is the auspicious synthesis of lyrics and music, a combination of media, which has the power to create this new quality: mediality. Thanks to this media impact and in connection with the widespread male choir movement the piece’s success was assured. .

Figure 2: Die Wacht am Rhein, musical setting by Carl Wilhelm (1854) From then on, it was only a question of time until Die Wacht am Rhein was visualized in paintings and picture postcards (see figures 3 and 4).

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And with its increasing popularity, finally, a new step was reached: in 1883 the Niederwald monument was built near the city of Rudesheim, situated 250 meters above the Rhine. The main figure on the monument is the German goddess Germania, symbolizing both the new power of the German Kaiserreich, founded in 1871, and the Guard on the Rhine. At the same time, this act of construction represents a further development in the use of media: poem and music are also incorporated into this building and by doing so, the piece was produced and stored in a durable and prominent way. It became part of the public consciousness and national heritage in the German Kaiserreich.6

Die Wacht am Rhein on YouTube: some reflections The study of video clips of Die Wacht am Rhein is bound to some methodological problems: a search by title only results in more than 8,000 hits on YouTube.7 Indeed, not all of these pieces offer a visualized version of the song. And regarding our initial question of how we can explain the use of Die Wacht am Rhein on YouTube, a choice based on qualitative matters should be adequate. In the following, I will sketch a range of different manners of presentation and reception, in order to illuminate the similarities and differences in the piece’s reception during the 19th century. There are several aspects involved in analyzing the variety of music and video clips with respect to their specific structures and content: x x x x x x x x x x

The diverse manners of presenting a song/music YouTube as a social media platform and its specific conditions of communication The video clip as a genre and a complex combination of media The original context of a song and its history of reception The change of the functions of a piece during its history of reception The historicity of media and material and its permanent presence for potential users The origin of the used materials and, if necessary, its identification The different ways and intentions of using the materials The different ways of reception and understanding by a more and more global group of addressees The anonymous sphere of the internet

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Finally, we may ask how far a specific reception group exists at all and who these people are. Although not all of these issues can be considered in this study, it is important to list them as a checklist, which may be used for further research.

Figure 3: Germania auf der Wacht am Rhein, painting by Lorenz Clasen (1860)

Types of video clips Regarding the video clips of Die Wacht am Rhein on YouTube, different types can be distinguished. First, in many of the video clips, the variety of available technology is used to offer a kind of synopsis of the different

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media, accumulated in the course of the piece’s history. In other words, the different materials, having originated in various historical contexts, serve as a tool set that allows the user to choose what he wants to emphasize. In the case of Die Wacht am Rhein, paintings and postcards are often used in the clips to illustrate and highlight the song’s lyrics.8 Such a usage brings, from the perspective of a historian, hard philological problems. Finding out the complete and comprehensive references for the used pictures and sound materials may seem quite impossible. In a second type of video clip, the choir music underscores the documentary film materials from World War I and II. In most cases, German soldiers and their weapons are presented – evoking the impression that they are on their direct way to the Rhine, fighting the French enemy. The origin of these film materials remains, however, unknown, and their origins should be checked by specialists, particularly by military or film historians.9 All in all, this type of video clip demonstrates the urgency of interdisciplinary teamwork.

Producers, users, intentions Another question concerns the producers and users of these internet offers. Who are they and what are their intentions? For what reasons do they post their clips on YouTube? As above, it is difficult to answer these questions, since YouTube members in most cases use a pseudonym for their uploads and channels. However, if we compare their pseudonyms with their description of the Wacht am Rhein clips, as well as with their further video clips hosted on YouTube, and finally with their answers to user comments, then we are able to build up a profile of these users. On the one hand, they may be characterized as lovers of history, which seem to have fun when illustrating the song’s lyrics in a very detailed way, very close to its content. The video clip Die Wacht am Rhein by Leander Darius Huber may serve as an example. Huber combines scenes from the movies Bismarck, originating from 1940, and Im Westen nichts Neues. The latter is based on the famous novel on World War I by Erich Maria Remarque. As a third source for this clip functions a documentary on Kaiser Wilhelm und die Deutschen, dating from 2013.10 On the other hand and more often, the producers seem to be part of the German or international right wing and neo Nazi milieu. User names like ‘schwarzehakenkreuz2’ or ‘Patriot1418’ clearly hint at such a political context.11 For example, by clicking the username ‘Patriot1418’, one is led to the video channel ‘Third Reich’, to which users in Germany have no access, since Nazi propaganda is restricted by German law.12 Particularly the presentation of the Wacht

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am Rhein with military film materials often hints at the nationalistic and chauvinistic right wing milieu. The powerful music of the marching song, combined with the pictures of military power, functions to demonstrate strength and great national emotion. Music and film material is used here to glorify the militaristic society of the Kaiserreich and of Nazi Germany, which are valued as symbols of a strong and powerful Germany – and this in a very naïve but appropriate way: The propagandistic graphical material benefits from the positive emotional effect of the music; furthermore the shown soldier groups correspond to the choir interpreting the song. At the same time, the members of the neo Nazi milieu condemn the modern Federal Republic of Germany as false and weak. An example is offered by the song Die Wacht an der Spree, an adaptation of Die Wacht am Rhein, by the neo Nazi rock band Landser.13 Both the rock band and its songs are forbidden in Germany because of their aggressive, antihuman and antidemocratic propaganda. Therefore, this video clip cannot be viewed in Germany, but it is still displayed in the search results on YouTube. Landser’s adaption of Die Wacht am Rhein is a direct attack on contemporary Germany. The ‘Bundesrepublik Deutschland’ (BRD) is not only ridiculed as ‘Kanackenrepublik’ (which means a condemnation of Germany as a country with too many foreigners), but its democratic constitution is vehemently criticized by using direct allusions to the verses of Die Wacht am Rhein:14 Lieb Vaterland zu dir ich steh, Zum Teufel mit der BRD. Fest steht und treu die Wacht, Die Wacht an der Spree.

Beloved Fatherland, I will be with you. To the Devil with the BRD [the Federal Republic of Germany]. Firm and True stands the Watch, the Watch at the Spree.

Besides such video clips, which are clearly motivated by political ideology, there are also offers on YouTube, where it is very difficult to find out something about the intentions of their producers. For example, in some video clips, it seems to be the main goal to illustrate the song text in a very detailed or a historically adequate way, using photographs, postcards or movie scenes.

Beyond the mainstream: Further references Amongst the numerous video clips are also some that have, at first glance, an unexpected reference to Die Wacht am Rhein. An example is the song

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Lieb Vaterland (Beloved Fatherland) by the singer Udo Jürgens, who is one of the most prominent figures of the German ‘Schlager’-scene in the last 40 years. The song dates from 1970 and its main topic is social critique. By quoting the text and music of the refrain of Die Wacht am Rhein, Jürgens appeals to German society not to decline into stagnancy. Here, the song is used ironically; Jürgens does not want to be calm like the fatherland, as it sounds in the original poem.15 A further example in the context of social protest is the song Die Wacht am Rhein by the folk rock band Fiedel Michel, from the end of the 1970s. Fiedel Michel used the title to express their unbending and never ending resistance against the use of nuclear energy.16 In contrast to its German image, the usage of the song in foreign countries is especially surprising. For example, both Yale College in the U.S.A. and Doshisha College in Japan use the song as a college hymn. The texts were rewritten in 1881 and 1908 by the Americans Henry Durand and William Merrel Vories, respectively. The latter worked in Japan as an architect, pedagogue and missionary. eYale College Hymn (Henry Durand)

Doshisha College Song (William Merrell Vories) Bright College years, with pleasure rife, One purpose, Doshisha, thy name The shortest, gladdest years of life; Doth signify one lofty aim; How swiftly are ye gliding by! To train thy sons in heart and hand Oh, why doth time so quickly fly? To live for God and Native Land. The seasons come, the seasons go, Dear Alma Mater, sons of thine The earth is green or white with snow, Shall be as branches to the vine; But time and change shall naught avail Tho’ through the world we wander far and To break the friendships formed at Yale. wide, Still in our hearts thy precepts shall abide! We all must leave this college home, About the stormy world to roam; We came to Doshisha to find But though the mighty ocean's tide The broader culture of the mind; Should us from dear old Yale divide, We tarried here to learn anew As round the oak the ivy twines The value of a purpose true; Dear Alma Mater, ours the part The clinging tendrils of its vines, To face the future staunch of heart, So are our hearts close bound to Yale By ties of love that ne'er shall fail. Since thou hast taught us with high aim to stand In after years, should troubles rise For God, for Doshisha, and Native Land! To cloud the blue of sunny skies, How bright will seem, through mem’ry’s When war clouds bring their dark alarms. Ten thousand patriots rush to arms, haze But we would through long years of peace Those happy, golden, bygone days! Oh, let us strive that ever we Our Country's name and fame increase.

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May let these words our watch-cry be, Where’er upon life’s sea we sail: ‘For God, for Country and for Yale!’17

Dear Alma Mater, sons of thine Will hold their lives a trust divine Steadfast in purpose we will ever stand For God, for Doshisha, and Native Land!18

An explanation for this foreign usage may be the very early reception of Die Wacht am Rhein, when the piece was not yet associated by listeners with an aggressive and chauvinistic Germany, as it was after World Wars I and II. Thinking in emphatic national categories was the norm in the 19th century. Therefore, it was probably the energy and power of the piece that inspired Durand and Vories to write poetry for this music. Furthermore, traditional values such as friendship, patriotism and love for the Alma mater are highly valued in both texts. Particularly the university is styled as an important place, preparing its students for the world and resulting in an everlasting relationship. Similarities with Die Wacht am Rhein can be seen in the call for an absolute and unquestioned identification with an object. However, while the final maxim of the Yale Hymn – ‘For God, for Country and for Yale!’ – clearly emphasizes religion, nation and institution as central categories of human life, the Doshisha College Song is rather situated in a supranational context, accentuating for example the ‘love and service of mankind’. Giving the piece such a supranational and pacific message becomes even more remarkable if we consider the typical usage of the piece after World War II: in movies such as Casablanca or Iron Sky, the music of Die Wacht am Rhein always symbolizes Nazi Germany.

Conclusion Several video clips of Die Wacht am Rhein can be found on the social media platform YouTube. In many of them, the media history of the piece plays an important role. Its different media genres – poem, music, pictures and other forms of visualization – are used to strengthen the text. Despite its strong roots in the history of the 19th century, the piece is sometimes used with very different messages, ranging from rather aesthetical and nostalgic contributions, to video clips with clearly political intentions. Particularly, the anonymity of the Internet enables its users to express their opinions very freely and sometimes polemically. YouTube does not only invite its users to share video clips, but it also has a seismographic function for society. For example, some clips of Die Wacht am Rhein were clicked over one million times and in some cases a clip has caused more than 600 comments. Viewer comments could play an important role in

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future research, investigating for example the relevance and connection of music in political and aesthetical contexts.

Figure 4: Die Wacht am Rhein, picture postcard from World War I

Notes 1

See Allgemeines Deutsches Kommersbuch 35 (1858). Lahr: Moritz Schauenburg, 32–33; Volksliederbuch für Männerchor (1906). Hrsg. auf Veranlassung Seiner Majestät des Deutschen Kaisers Wilhelm II., Leipzig. 2 For the citation of Marshall Mc Luhan see Braungart, W. (2004). “Irgendwie dazwischen. Authentizität, Medialität, Ästhetizität: ein kurzer Kommentar”. In: Frevert, U. & Braungart, W. (Eds.). Sprachen des Politischen: Medien und Medialität in der Geschichte. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 356–368, 367. 3 See Braungart (2004), 357f. 4 For the English translation see www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Wacht_am_Rhein [2014-04-03]. 5 For the significance of the religious sphere in the context of the German male choir movement see Klenke, D. (1998). Der singende “deutsche Mann”. Gesangvereine und deutsches Nationalbewusstsein von Napoleon bis Hitler. Münster: Publishing Company; Klenke, D. (2013). “Deutsche Sängerfeste des 19. Jahrhunderts im Spiegel der Medienwelt: politische Funktionalität oder Gesangsästhetik?”. In: Loeser, M. & Werbeck, W. (Eds.). Musikfeste im Ostseeraum im späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert – Rezeption und

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Kulturtransfer, Intentionen und Inszenierungsformen. Berlin: Frank & Timme (= Greifswalder Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft; 19), 9–40. 6 A brilliant survey on the Niederwald monument and its history is given by Brandt, B. (2004). “Von der Kundgebungsmacht zum Denkanstoß. Das Denkmal als Medium politischer Kommunikation in der Moderne”. In: Frevert, U. & Braungart, W. (Eds.). Sprachen des Politischen: Medien und Medialität in der Geschichte. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 168–216. 7 Compare http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Die+Wacht+am+Rhein [2014-04-03]. 8 For example, see the video clip Die Wacht am Rhein, uploaded by ‘felixdeus’ on 2007-10-24: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zikcHnimsxk [2014-04-03]. 9 A typical example is offered by the video clip Wehrmacht – Die Wacht am Rhein in Colour, uploaded by ‘Patriot1418’ on 2010-08-17: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTT75oDAKVk [2014-04-03]. 10 Compare http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jonAK4UEVKw [2014-04-03]. 11 For example, see the video clip Die Wacht am Rhein, uploaded by ‘schwarzehakenkreuz2’, on 2012-02-20: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_nin6uLEvA [2014-04-03]. 12 For example, see the video clip, mentioned above, Wehrmacht – Die Wacht am Rhein in Colour, uploaded by ‘Patriot1418’, on 2010-08-17: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTT75oDAKVk [2014-04-03]. Further information on the number of subscribers and users can also be found at this place. 13 In the German language, the term ‘Landser’ was used to refer to a simple German infantry soldier in World War II. 14 Translation by the author. For the complete lyrics of the song see http://www.justsomelyrics.com/938218/landser-wacht-an-der-spree-lyrics.html [2014-04-03]. 15 For the song Lieb Vaterland by Udo Jürgens compare http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m96LCDrMirI [2014-04-03]. 16 For the song Wacht am Rhein by Fiedel Michel see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFnjS8N19n8 [2014-04-03]. 17 For the Yale College Hymn compare http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAX1jguJDM [2014-04-03]. 18 For the Doshisha College Song see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoSv3rAKrNw [2014-04-03].

CHAPTER SEVEN THE INVOLVEMENT OF FREEMASONS IN THE ‘ERSTES DEUTSCHES SÄNGERFEST’ IN FRANKFURT-ON-MAIN IN 1838: OBSERVATIONS FROM A CHORALSOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE FRIEDHELM BRUSNIAK

In order to understand better the development of the choral movement at the beginning of the 19th century, new choral-sociological research is urgently required. This task had already been decided upon in 2009 before the Deutscher Chorverband (DCV), on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Deutscher Sängerbund (DSB) on 21st September 1862 in Coburg, commissioned a research project in 2012 on the history of ‘choir and choral music’ in germanophone areas. The project’s aims were outlined at the Network Meeting Choir in Focus in November, 2009 and published one year later.1 During preparations for the anniversary exhibition, ‘Vom Freiheitskampf zur Freizeitgestaltung. 150 Jahre Deutscher Chorverband’, it soon became clear that no one had previously suspected how large the gaps in the research were. The exhibition was first shown in St. Paul’s Church, Frankfurt on Main – one of the most symbolic places in the history of democracy in Germany – during the German Sängerfest [German Choral Festival] 2012.2 During a small international conference on ‘Medialität im Chorgesangwesen’ on 8th June 2012, Dietmar Klenke and I, with the Network Meeting 2012 in mind, pointed out the research deficit concerning even the origins, the beginning and the development of German-speaking, non-professional choral singing around 1800 and the first festivals for singers, singing and song during the Vormärz preceding the 1848 revolution. A case in point is the First German Sängerfest in Frankfurt on Main in 1838. This took place under the banner of the

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political, social and (music-)cultural positioning of a liberal middle class and its ideals across all borders of class and religious denomination, as is indicated by not only the communication and exchange between members of the Frankfurter Liederkranz and protagonists of the Swiss male-choirmovement but also by the incorporation of a Mozart Foundation for supporting young musicians, and influenced by progressive Masonic ideas.3 Compared to music and Sängerfeste in other places during the Vormärz,4 the percentage of Masons participating in planning and celebrating this path-breaking ‘First Sängerfest of the Mozart foundation’ is highly remarkable and reminds us how urgently appropriate networkstudies are required to supply more differentiated answers to questions about the initiators and supporters of non-professional choral singing and their institutional and organisational alliances since the early 19th century.5 In the present article, potential directions for research, based on choralsociological studies of the Sängerfest in Frankfurt 1838 and taking due account of Freemasonry, are discussed and shown to be of interest even for historical choral research outside the germanophone area.

The First German Sängerfest in Frankfurt on Main, 1838 For Image VI, Openness & Ideology, at the DCV anniversary exhibition in 2012, a lithographic print by Heinrich Rustige, published in the Fest-Gabe des Frankfurter Liederkranz: Erinnerung an das 1. Sängerfest der MozartStiftung, gehalten zu Frankfurt a/M 29. u. 30. Juli 1838 was chosen. The commentary was as follows: The Frankfurt Choral Union Liederkranz traces the origins of the Sängerfest back to Mozart, not only as the musical genius, but also as the Freemason, who saw the dominant position of the hereditary nobility as out-dated and adopted ideas of an elite independent of confession or status. The drawing shows a choir conductor enthroned above the population of Frankfurt and beating the time. Under the banner of artistry and song, different groups of the population and different worlds of ideas form a harmonious whole bridging all social differences. The artist, and not a patrician or a prince, rules over the civic landscape as an integrative authority. Gathered in the foreground in front of Francofurtia are the crown of a civic imperial rule, woven about with German national oak-leaves, the Christian cross, Masonic compasses, a book symbolising scholarship, a ship’s anchor and an artist’s palette6. All of these represent different aspects of Frankfurt’s civic society. The juxtaposition of worker, merchant and soldier also gives the impression of room for different groups, underlined clearly by a hexagram on the fabric bale. Consisting of two interwoven triangles, this Masonic

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symbol points to the striving to promote a rapprochement of Christians and Jews in Frankfurt across confessional boundaries, thus also supporting Jewish emancipation.7

Picture 1: Heinrich Rustige, ‘Francofurtia erwartet die Sänger’ [Frankfurt awaits the singers], in: Festgabe des Frankfurter Liederkranz: Erinnerung an das 1. Sängerfest der Mozart-Stiftung, gehalten zu Frankfurt a/M 29. und 30. Juli 1838, lithographic print

For the annalist Heinrich Weismann (1808–1890), member of the lodge Zur Einigkeit in Frankfurt, it was no coincidence that most of the founder members of the Frankfurter Liederkranz in the year 1828 were Freemasons. He attributed this to the ‘spiritual current’ which was also providing new impetus for Freemasonry.8 During the First German Sängerfest in 1838, Weismann’s brother Mason of roughly the same age, the physician and psychiatrist Heinrich Hoffmann (1809–1894), who wrote ‘Shockheaded

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Peter’ (Struwwelpeter) in 1845, expressed in his poem ‘Fort mit den Pedanten’ the aspiration of inter-confessional integration in the choral movement by placing Christians, Jews and heathens alongside each other on equal terms under the banner of world-openness. It thus took up the theme of the future-oriented liberal demands in the question of Jewish emancipation.9 Hoffmann became a member of the Masonic lodge Zur Einigkeit in Frankfurt in 1836. It is noteworthy, however, that he left this lodge a few years later, as his father did more than a decade before, in a protest against its refusal to accept Jewish Freemasons.10 Taking a closer look at the musical programme of the First German Sängerfest you will notice a number of compositions with Masonic texts or with texts in close sympathy with Masonic ideals. The festival was opened on 28th July 1838 with the oratorio for male voice choir, ‘Zeit und Ewigkeit’, composed by the president of the Sängerfest, Franz Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee from Switzerland, member of the lodge Modestia con Libertate in Zürich. Schnyder von Wartensee collated the text himself, taking parts of three spiritual songs by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, who, like Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, was member of the lodge Zu den drei Rosen in Hamburg. After that the ‘Vater unser’ composed by Louis Spohr was performed. Louis Spohr joined the lodge Ernst zum Kompass in Gotha in 1807 and composed a couple of Masonic songs. He was introduced to the lodge by the vice-president of the First German Sängerfest, the merchant, baptised Jew, member of the lodge Zur Einigkeit in Frankfurt and song-composer Wilhelm Speyer (1790–1878). The programme on the second day opened demonstratively with Mozart’s song to the bond of brotherhood, ‘Brüder reicht die Hand zum Bunde’, which is one of the most popular Masonic songs even today, and closed with a canon by Mozart with new lyrics (‘Fort, fort, fort! – schnell bereitet euch zum Feste’). Among the numbers with ‘Masonic affinities’, another composition should be mentioned, an adaptation of Johann Peter Uz’s (1720–1796) song ‘An die Sonne’ (‘O Sonne! Königin der Welt’) by Speyer’s teacher Johann Anton André (1775–1842), who became member of the lodge Sokrates zur Standhaftigkeit in Frankfurt in 1808 and later, in 1812, of the lodge Carl und Charlotte zur Treue in Offenbach. Speyer himself set Ernst Moritz Arndt’s (1769–1860) hymn ‘Des Deutschen Vaterland’ (‘Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland’) to music, written by Arndt before the Battle of the Nations in 1813 and to become famous during the German unification process. Even though Speyer’s song did not achieve the same fame as the setting by Gustav Reichhardt (1797–1884) in 1825, it was a respectable attempt.11 Speyer furthermore set ‘Waldluft’ (‘O Wald! Du kühlender Bronnen’) to music, a poem by his brother Mason Heinrich

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Weismann. Weismann’s ‘Deutsches Lied’ (‘Wenn sich der Geist auf Andachtsschwingen’), set to music by Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda (1801– 1866), later entered the staple repertoire of German male-voice choirs.12 Against this background, it is not surprising that Berthold Auerbach (1812–1882), Talmudic scholar and later Freemason (in 1838 joining the lodge Zur aufgehenden Morgenröte in Frankfurt – only a few months after the First German Sängerfest) became one of the most intent observers of this festival.13

Further research In the light of prominent Masonic activities during the First German Sängerfest in Frankfurt 1838, there is increasing substantiation of evidence that the involvement of Freemasons was greater than previously supposed, with an effect extending beyond the first period of the foundation of Germany’s oldest male-voice choirs in the first third of the 19th century. Indeed, the influence of Freemasons on the development of German male choir singing was already mentioned in Hans Georg Nägeli’s and Michael Traugott Pfeiffer’s Gesangbildungslehre für Männerchor in 1817, but the actual dimensions of these impulses have not yet been explored systematically.14 An initial investigation of Auswahl von Maurer-Gesängen mit Melodien der vorzüglichsten Componisten (Berlin, 1798), collected and published by Joseph Michael Böheim [= F.M. Böheim] confirms Pfeiffer and Nägeli’s evidence of the importance of this anthology in the development of the German male-voice tradition. In particular, a special feature already identifiable in the performance practice found in the 1759 collection of Neue Freymaurer-Lieder by Johann Adolph Scheibe, the invention of ‘Refraingesang’ (a choral repetition of the closing line), could prove a significant pointer regarding a possible ‘Masonic’ context.15 As Dietmar Klenke showed using the example of the iconography of the first print of the piano score of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s ‘oppositionally tuned’ setting of Schiller’s Festgesang an die Künstler op.68, not only textual and musical, but also iconographic, sources have to be considered. Above the head of an angel-like muse-figure in a victorpose, the publisher Peter Joseph Simrock deliberately placed the Masonic hexagram as a protest against the closure of the Masonic lodge Les Frères courageux in Bonn by the Prussians in 1815. ‘Not least among the reasons for the disfavour with which his lodge, to which Simrock’s father also belonged, was viewed were its French and Jewish members’, since Freemasonry, ‘like the choral associations, was suspected of being a support of the middle-class oppositional movement’.16

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The extent to which local and regional aspects have to be considered can be seen in the case of Württemberg. Although the old lodge Zu den drei Cedern, belonging to the Rite of Strict Observance, had existed there between 1774 and 1784, it was only after 51 years of prohibition that permission was granted by the King of Württemberg to found the new lodge Wilhelm zur aufgehenden Sonne in Stuttgart in 1835. But in 1823 a ‘Kränzchen’ (fr. Triangle Cercle) had already formed around Johann Baptist Krebs (1774–1851) and Peter Joseph Lindpaintner (1791–1856) in Stuttgart. The name was a common designation for ‘an association of Freemasons from the same or different Grand Lodges’ where there was no lodge and no possibility of founding one.17 In Southern Germany and in Switzerland, ‘Liederkranz’, and sometimes ‘Vokal-Kränzchen’, was a common term for a musical circle, but it is remarkable that only one year later, when a new male choir in Stuttgart was founded in 1824, it was none other than a former Freemason, court counselor Christian Carl André (1763–1831), grandson of a baptized Jew and philanthropist who suggested the name ‘Liederkranz’.18 Other famous protagonists of the German male choral movement, like Conrad Dietrich Haßler (1805–1873) in Ulm, member of the chamber of deputies and of the re-established lodge Asträa zu den drei Ulmen and the lodge Carl zu den drei Ulmen from 1843 and 1844 respectively were also involved in the German choral movement – to judge by their speeches – in the spirit of Freemasonry.19 This also applied to Saxony, where close relations between Freemasonry and choral singing can be traced concretely up until the German revolution in 1848/49.20 Even during the consultations on the statutes of the Deutscher Sängerbund, now the Deutscher Chorverband, on 21st September 1862, Wilhelm Tschirch (1818–1892), Hofkapellmeister in Gera and himself a Freemason, suggested that all singers should celebrate a festival each year, as the Freemasons already did, a festival of ‘spiritual brotherhood’.21 Among the profitable tasks in future choral-sociological studies would certainly be the systematic determination of the persons who got involved with the choral movement either as Freemasons or – like Carl Friedrich Zelter and Hans Georg Nägeli – as those with close links, or at least sympathies, with Masonic ideals.22 Here, research perspectives open up for the whole field of germanophone choral singing within and outside Europe wherever Freemasonry was completely or partially prohibited, as in Austria and Switzerland as well as in the United States, where German male-voice choirs, as is well-known, were founded particularly frequently.23

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Notes 1

Brusniak, F. (2010). “‘Blick zurück nach vorn’. Chorwissenschaftliche Forschung im Zeichen der 150. Wiederkehr der Gründung des Deutschen Sängerbundes 1862”. In: Geisler, U. & Johansson, K. (Eds.). Choir in Focus 2010. Göteborg: Bo Ejeby Förlag. 2 See also Brusniak, F. & Klenke, D. (Eds.) (2012). Vom Freiheitskampf zur Freizeitgestaltung. Katalog zur Jubiläumsausstellung 150 Jahre Deutscher Chorverband 1862-2012. Berlin: Deutscher Chorverband. The catalogue was written with the help of A. Arlt, H.J. Keden, H. Krones und A.C. Lehmann and published by DCV. 3 Brusniak, F. (1995). “‘… um dem europäischen Meister der Töne – Mozart – zu huldigen’. Zu einigen weniger bekannten Mozart-Unternehmungen der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts”. Acta Mozartiana 42, 21–31; Brusniak, F. (1997). “Organisierte und institutionalisierte Mozart-Pflege im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert”. In: Loos, H. & Möller, E. (Eds.). Musikgeschichte in Mittel- und Osteuropa. Mitteilungen der internationalen Arbeitsgemeinschaft an der Technischen Universität Chemnitz 1. Chemnitz: Gudrun Schröder Verlag; Klenke, D. (1998). Der singende ‘deutsche Mann’. Gesangvereine und deutsches Nationalbewusstsein von Napoleon bis Hitler. Münster: Waxmann Verlag, 34f.; Stehen, J. (1998). “Frankfurter Nationalfeste des 19. Jahrhunderts”. Archiv für Frankfurts Geschichte und Kunst 64, 267–292; Kienzle, U. (2013). Neue Töne braucht das Land. Die Frankfurter Mozart-Stiftung im Wandel der Geschichte (1838–2013). Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Frankfurter Bürgerstiftung (= Mäzene, Stifter und Stadtkultur; 10). 4 Weibel, S. (2006). Die deutschen Musikfeste des 19. Jahrhunderts im Spiegel der zeitgenössischen musikalischen Fachpresse. Kassel: Merseburger (= Beiträge zur rheinischen Musikgeschichte; 168); Brusniak, F. (2013). “Musik- und Gesangfeste – Klassifizierungsversuche und Kritik im 19. Jahrhundert”. In: Loeser, M. & Werbeck, W. (Eds.). Musikfeste im Ostseeraum im späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert. Rezeption und Kulturtransfer, Intentionen und Inszenierungsformen. Berlin: Frank & Timme Verlag (= Greifswalder Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft; 19). 5 Max Weber had already called for social studies concerning clubs and societies in the broadest sense during the first German sociologists’ conference in 1910. Weber, M. (1911). “Geschäftsbericht zum Ersten Deutschen Soziologentag 1910”. In: Simmel, G., Tönnies, F. & Weber, M. (Eds.). Verhandlungen des Ersten Deutschen Soziologentages vom 19.–22.10.1910 in Frankfurt a. M.. Tübingen: Verlag Mohr (= Verhandlungen des Deutschen Soziologentages; 1); Brusniak, F. (1997). Anfänge des Laienchorwesens in Bayerisch-Schwaben. Musik- und sozialgeschichtliche Studien. Postdoctoral Diss. Augsburg: Ms., 6–18, 40f. (Mitglieder der Augsburger Liedertafel 1843), 87–92 (Mitglieder des Musik- und Gesangverein Nördlingen 1825/26), 166–169 (Mitglieder des Liederkranz Kempten 1847), 196–206, 222–225 (Gründungsmitglieder des Singverein Ottobeuren 1836, ordentliche und außerordentliche Mitglieder 1836–1843); Brusniak, F. & Klenke, D. (Eds.) (1998). Volksschullehrer und außerschulische Musikkultur. Tagungsbericht 1997. Augsburg: Verlag Dr. Bernd Wißner

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(= Feuchtwanger Beiträge zur Musikforschung; 2). – Information on Freemasons in the following according to Lennhoff, E., Posner, O. & Binder, D.A. (2006). Internationales Freimaurerlexikon. 5. überarbeitete Auflage der Ausgabe von 1932. Munich: Herbig. 6 In the original text of the catalogue mistakenly: ‘eine Wagenfederung’, i.e. a vehicle spring. 7 Brusniak & Klenke (2012), 34 f.: ‘Der Frankfurter Gesangverein Liederkranz erblickte als Initiator des Sängerfestes in Mozart nicht nur das Musikgenie, sondern auch den Freimaurer, der die beherrschende Stellung des Geburtsadels für überlebt hielt und konfessions- wie standesübergreifenden Elitevorstellungen anhing. Die Zeichnung zeigt einen über der Frankfurter Bevölkerung thronenden Chorleiter, der den Takt angibt. Im Zeichen von Künstlertum und Gesang bilden unterschiedliche Bevölkerungsgruppen und Ideenwelten ein harmonisches Ensemble über alle sozialen Unterschiede hinweg. Der Künstler, nicht ein Patrizier oder Fürst beherrscht hier als Integrationsinstanz die städtische Szenerie. Aufgereiht sind im Vordergrund vor der Francofurtia die Krone eines bürgerlichen, von nationaldeutschem Eichenlaub umspielten Volkskaisertums, das Christenkreuz, ein Freimaurerzirkel, ein das Gelehrtentum versinnbildlichendes Buch, ein Schiffsanker und eine Malerpalette. All dies steht für verschiedene Aspekte der Frankfurter Stadtgesellschaft.’ 8 [Weismann, H.] (1878). Der Frankfurter Liederkranz ein Cultur- und Lebensbild. Festschrift zur Feier seines Fünzigsten Stiftungsfestes am 15. Februar 1878. Frankfurt a. M.: Frankfurter Liederkranz. 9 Brusniak & Klenke (2012), 36. – Concerning Weismann see the obituary by P., K. (1890). “Br Dr. Heinrich Weismann †”. Latomia. Neue Zeitschrift für Freimaurerei 13 (5), 33f. 10 Hoede, R. (1996). Heinrich Hoffmann mit und ohne Schurz, dem Humanisten und Mediziner zum Gedenken (1809–1894). Bayreuth: Forschungsloge Quatuor Coronati Nr. 808 (= Quellenkundliche Arbeit Nr. 36); for the context see Hopp, A. (1997). Jüdisches Bürgertum in Frankfurt am Main im 19. Jahrhundert. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag (= Frankfurter Historische Abhandlungen; 38), 123–148 (‘Das Vereinswesen’). 11 Speyer, E. (1925). Wilhelm Speyer. Der Liederkomponist. 1790–1878. Sein Leben und Verkehr mit seinen Zeitgenossen dargestellt von seinem jüngsten Sohne. München: Drei Masken Verlag. 12 Brusniak, F. (2004). “Der Deutsche Sängerbund und das ‘deutsche Lied’”. In: Loos, H. & Keym, S. (Eds.) (2002). Nationale Musik im 20. Jahrhundert. Kompositorische und soziokulturelle Aspekte der Musikgeschichte zwischen Ostund Westeuropa. Leipzig: Schröder. 13 Auerbach, B. (1838). “Das Sängerfest zu Frankfurt a.M.”. Europa. Chronik der gebildeten Welt 3, 481–496. 14 Pfeiffer, M.G. & Nägeli, H.G. (1817). Gesangbildungslehre für den Männerchor. Beylage A zur zweyten Hauptabteilung der vollständigen und ausführlichen Gesangschule, [Heft 1]. Zürich: H.G. Nägeli, X. – For the current state of research see Geisler, U. (Ed.). Choral Research 1960–2010. Bibliography / Körforskning 1960–2010. Bibliografi. Lund/Malmö: Southern

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Choral Centre/Kör Centrum Syd; Brusniak, F. (2014). “Kritische Anmerkungen zur Historiographie des deutschen Männergesangs im frühen 19. Jahrhundert”. In: Fischer, A. & Kornemann, M. (Eds.) (forthcoming). Integer vitae. Die Zeltersche Liedertafel als kulturgeschichtliches Phänomen (1809–1832). Hannover: Wehrhahn (= Berliner Klassik. Eine Großstadtkultur um 1800; 20). 15 For the present lecture, the following examples for the aspect ‘choir’ have been chosen from Böheim’s collection: Nr. 2, Mozart, W.A.. Uebt immer Treu und Redlichkeit; Nr. 16, Weber, B.A.. Wir singen heut im Hochgesang; Nr. 22, Ambrosch, A.. Erschall, o Gefühl! Vom maurischen Bunde; Nr. 51, Hurka, F.. Großer Meister, dessen Allmacht Myriaden Welten baut. In: Böheim, F.M. (Ed.) (1798). Auswahl von Maurer Gesängen mit Melodien der vorzüglichsten Componisten in zwey Abtheilungen getheilt, Band 1. Berlin: self-published. 16 Klenke, D. (2009). “Die nationalreligiöse Sakralisierung des deutschen Männerchorgesangs im 19. Jahrhundert”. Historische Mitteilungen 22, 24–49. 17 Braun, R. (2008). “Freimaurer im Parlament des Bundeslandes BadenWürttemberg und seiner Vorläufer seit 1818”. Quatuor Coronati. Jahrbuch für Freimaurerforschung 45, 167–226; Lennhoff et al. (2006), 481. 18 Brusniak, F. (1993). “Die Idee der musikalischen Volksbildung beim Stuttgarter ‘Ur-Liederkranz’”. Jahrbuch für Volkskunde N.F. 16, 54–64. – In this context see the use of the name ‘Kränzchen’ within students’ fraternities. Assmann, R. (1996). “Kränzchen – Landsmannschaften – Corps, zur Frühgeschichte der Corps”. Einst und Jetzt. Jahrbuch für corpsstudentische Geschichtsforschung 41, 155–178. 19 Schädlich, H. (1964). Geschichte der vollkommenen und gerechten JohannisFreimaurerloge “Carl zu den drei Ulmen” im Or. Ulm. Ulm: Loge “Carl zu den drei Ulmen”, 51–54. – Haßler was Worshipful Master from 1849 to 1852 and from 1862 to 1867. 20 One example is Ludwig Bechstein’s (1801–1892) Masonic poem ‘Ein Lied im höhern Chor’ (‘Menschen beglücken, o schönes Loos’), set for four-part malevoice choir by Conradin Kreutzer (1782–1849) in 1847. It is to be found in the penultimate issue of Germany’s oldest journal for male choral singing, Teutonia. Literarisch-kritische Blätter für den deutschen Männergesang (1846–1849), published at the Verlag Conrad Glaser in Schleusingen by the cantor of the Kreuzkirche, Dresden Julius Otto (1804–1877) and the music journalist and composer for male-voice choir, Julius Schladebach. It would probably have been understood by the singers as an appeal to remain true to their ideals in the future. Cf. Brusniak, F. (2013). “‘Ein Lied im höhern Chor’ – Zu einer unbekannten Bechstein-Vertonung von Conradin Kreutzer aus dem Jahre 1849”. Jahrbuch für Erfurter Geschichte 8, 217–238. 21 [Ausschuss des Deutscher Sängerbundes] (1863). “Protokoll des ersten deutschen Sängertags zu Coburg am 21. September 1862”. Die Sängerhalle 2, 12. 22 For Nägeli’s less known sympathy for Freemasonry see his poem ‘Die Freymaurer’ in: Nägeli, H.G. (1825). Liederkränze. Zürich: Hans Georg Nägeli, 330–332. 23 The lecture was held by my colleague at the Stiftung Dokumentations- und Forschungszentrum des Deutschen Chorwesens in Feuchtwangen, Alexander Arlt. The article was translated by William Buchanan, Würzburg.

PART II PRACTICES

CHAPTER EIGHT 1000 YEARS AND 1000 BOYS’ VOICES: THE CRISIS AND RADICAL CHALLENGE FOR CHORAL SINGING MARTIN ASHLEY

Is there a crisis, and if so, what is it? The word ‘crisis’ is one of the most carelessly used words in the English language. In everyday speech it has come to be little more than a straightforward synonym for disaster or catastrophe. Whilst such a meaning is possible, the richer meaning refers to a period of difficulty or uncertainty that demands the taking of action to prevent disaster or catastrophe. A crisis is a crucial turning point when a very important decision about the future must be taken. There is already a substantial literature on the so-called ‘missing males’ syndrome of choral singing.1 I do not believe that the longstanding difficulties faced by choral directors in recruiting male singers merit the term ‘crisis’. In this chapter, I intend to discuss two recent developments that have propelled this difficulty more towards the crisis point. I am confining my discussion to what, for want of a better term, is called ‘classical’ choral singing. Unlike the contemporary rock-pop choir movement, ‘classical’ choral singing reserves a special niche for boys who combine the ability to sing in the soprano range (often termed ‘treble’ for boys) with the technical ability and fluency to read and interpret complex music almost as though they were adults. The period of a boy’s life in which he is able to do this is very short. Too young, and the boy has insufficient cognitive maturity, too old and the boy loses the purity and range of the treble voice to the changes of puberty. Much of the crisis revolves around this extremely delicate balancing act and the insatiable need it creates for the constant recruitment and rapid training of young boys to replace older ones who must leave the treble section.

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I intend also to offer some solutions so that the crisis may pass and choral singing might continue to thrive for another thousand years. The word root ‘secular’ appears in both of the developments I am going to describe, though with somewhat different meanings. x The ‘secular’ (i.e. gradual, slow) trend in puberty leading to boys’ voices changing sooner, x Secularisation in the other sense of retreat from religion, or at least religious confession. My analysis is by no means the doom or dystopia that might be implied by ‘crisis’ as synonym for disaster. There are positive, exciting and creative opportunities to be grasped. It is, however, a call for change underpinned by the belief that if the necessary change is not forthcoming an unsatisfactory situation could only become worse. Inclusion of the word ‘radical’ in the title implies that I hope to go beyond yet another analysis simply of why it is often difficult to interest boys in the status quo of choral work.

The Secular Trend The first use of the word ‘secular’ is a medical one. The term ‘secular trend’ is used in the study of large populations to describe a slow, unidirectional change in a measurement over a long period of time.2 The secular trend in stature refers to a gradual inclination over the last century for populations to become, on average, taller. The secular trend in puberty similarly refers to a tendency for girls to attain the age of menarche, that is first menstruation, at progressively earlier ages. Rather more controversially, there have been newspaper reports of a secular trend in the time of boys’ voice ‘breaking’.3 This is a trend that has potentially significant implications for choral singing. To quote one source: There are many children’s choirs which rely on treble voices up to the age of 13 or 14. This is no longer possible for most boys, for whom the average age of onset of voice change is 12½.4

It is rather more than simply the loss of boys from children’s choirs. One of the things that my research has been telling me for a number of years is that boys with the experience to do so readily discriminate between children’s music or ‘embarrassing baby songs’ and the serious choral repertoire.5 It is from the population of boys able to do this that most of the future adult male choral singers are drawn. It needs boys of a certain age,

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cognitive maturity and musical experience. Typically, the age of twelve or thirteen might be taken as a time when boys begin to become capable of serious analytical reflection upon the repertoire they sing and the level of musical and intellectual satisfaction they gain from it. An instinctive ‘feel’ for this repertoire will develop at somewhat earlier ages and is vital in the build-up to the intellectual awakening of the twelve-year-old.6 It is not only how a boy thinks or feels that is significant. Musicologists and choir directors have long been exercised by the problems of balancing physical maturity and musical maturity. For probably hundreds of years, the boy treble line has existed because sufficient musical maturity is attained a year or two before unwelcome (for the conductor) physical maturity renders the treble voice increasingly useless.7 Musicologists are fascinated by the prospect of choirs in the past where boys were more musically mature yet less physically mature than they are now.8 The present day role of the oldest trebles (roughly twelve to fourteen years) in a choir is all but incalculable, less perhaps for their occasional peaks as soloists than for the daily round of leading the younger boys and providing the vocal role models that are so essential in the process of learning choral singing through imitation. The crisis I envisage is that if boys in the future sing only ‘embarrassing baby songs’9 and leave choirs before gaining an inkling of the power of serious choral music, choral directors are going to have to look a great deal harder than in the past for the ‘missing males’ when recruiting quality tenors and basses. Choral singing is highly vulnerable to this because of the age of transfer between primary and secondary schooling. In the majority of cases, a boys’ choral unit must contain boys at both junior and senior schools. Without this combination, junior age boys will never learn what the mature boy’s voice is capable of. On progression to senior school, they will often give up singing as part of the rite of passage out of the ‘babies’.10 English choir schools usually get round this by transfer to senior school at age 13+. Where transfer is at the age of 11, the impact upon choral singing can be catastrophic. Earlier puberty is potentially another reason why boys might never really appreciate serious choral music as trebles. Even the choir schools could be vulnerable here if they are unprepared to adapt their practices to develop boys more quickly from perhaps a younger starting age.11 Choir directors, if they do not give up altogether, may have to work a good deal harder to coax quality choral singing out of smaller, less cognitively mature boys. A more practical alternative has of course been available since the increasingly widespread acceptance of young female voices on the treble line. Whilst this makes immediate sense from a musical point of

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view it raises questions about the means through which young males are to be interested in choral singing. There has not yet been sufficient investigation of this question. The evidence available to the author suggests that whilst adolescent males can become interested in a variety of singing genres, the route into the traditional choral canon for young male adults has been predominantly through the treble line of ‘classical’ style choirs. To abandon boy trebles therefore is to take a significant risk with the future of such choral singing. It is largely for reasons such as this that I embarked upon quite an extensive study of the secular trends of stature and puberty and the timing of voice ‘break’ in boys.12 I include the word ‘break’ in quotation marks because the preferred word for a whole variety of reasons is ‘change’. In spite of this the word ‘break’ remains the more commonly encountered one, at least when talking to English choir directors and the boys in their choirs. There are very good reasons for ‘change’ as we shall soon see.13 The study was quite extensive. Over one thousand recordings of boys’ voices were made in total and incorporated into a database that it is intended might be accessed by future researchers decades or even centuries hence. Not all the boys were choir singers. Over half were boys in a variety of schools whose speaking voices only were sampled. Of the choir singers, seven English cathedral choirs were visited and the boys’ voices recorded and analysed. The physical stature of the boys was also measured and compared with published national norms. A national youth choir was similarly analysed, as well as a variety of regional choirs where boys sang less frequently or intensively. Choir directors and vocal coaches were interviewed. Twenty boys from the choirs were studied longitudinally with close observation and measurement of physical growth and vocal development at three monthly intervals throughout the time of puberty. Extensive literature review and archival research was also conducted in an effort to establish reliable baselines from the past against which present day trends might be measured. The conclusion of this study was that in spite of inadequate medical evidence there is a balance of probability that the timing of puberty in boys has advanced slightly. The stress has to be on the word ‘slightly’ – a matter of months rather than years as is sometimes claimed in popular writing. Any tendency for boys to leave choirs at earlier ages than in the past was explained in the study only in small part by this advance in the timing of puberty. The larger part of the explanation had to do with changes in vocal pedagogy, increased concern with vocal health and child welfare, and consideration of how long it is appropriate for a boy to continue to sing in a soprano voice once a speaking voice in the baritone

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range has been attained. This does not necessarily amount to a crisis. If it does, the crisis is not in the medical facts, but in the interpretation of and reaction to them. First, choral professionals and enthusiasts need to understand why the medical evidence is ‘inadequate’. Puberty in boys differs from puberty in girls in several ways. The most important of these is simply that it is much harder to measure in boys than in girls. Girls may report the date of their first menstruation and many large-scale studies of pubertal timing in girls have been conducted on this basis. There is no equivalent for boys. The determination of medical puberty in boys requires an intimate examination that boys find acutely embarrassing and that researchers are increasingly reluctant to undertake.14 The consequence is that only a few small scale studies have been conducted and we do not, as a result, understand puberty trends in populations of boys anything like as well as we understand the phenomenon in girls. For boys, we rely more on observation of what are called the ‘secondary sex characteristics’.15 Increased musculature and lung capacity are hard to detect unless a boy is measured regularly. Obvious and sustained spurts in height growth gain may also indicate puberty but can be misleading as growth spurts can also occur outside puberty. The appearance of facial hair is easier to note but is a phenomenon of later adolescence. Many boys complete the main stages of puberty with little or no growth of facial hair. Some boys may be afflicted with acne that quite often appears around the same time as the growth of a light moustache. This preliminary growth of facial hair differs from the true growth of late adolescence/early adulthood in that does not require to be shaved. Acne and a light, proto-moustache are fairly clear indications of puberty well under way. Changes in a boy’s voice, however, are increasingly being recognised as the most reliable, sensitive, useful and measurable of the secondary sex characteristics.16 Exciting advances in voice analysis software now permit a boy’s pubertal status to be determined with surprising accuracy by speech alone. The non-intrusive nature of this assessment means that, for the first time, large population samples of boys may be studied. The same voice analysis software has allowed a much greater understanding of the differential impact of puberty on the singing and speaking voice to develop. There is a common misconception that is all too frequently repeated in popular newspapers that ‘puberty begins when the voice breaks’.17 In fact, almost the reverse of this is the case. The well cared for singing voice should not actually ‘break’ at all. It only does so if a boy sings soprano up to or beyond the point of completing puberty with

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little attention to management of the changes that are taking place. Two sequences of events of particular relevance and note happen during puberty. First, the speaking voice descends in pitch, slowly at first then quite rapidly as the end of puberty approaches.18 This is straightforward, though some boys nearing the final stages of puberty may temporarily experience the embarrassing phenomenon of a voice that ‘cracks’ during excited speech.19 Second, the singing voice adjusts its means of production in order to maintain its habitual compass and range in spite of the deeper speaking voice. For boy choral singers, this usually means a shift toward either a falsetto phonation and/or a form of extended ‘head voice’ phonation that is as yet not fully understood.20 At the same time, the boy gains new notes lower in his range. Boys at this stage of development can often sing a useful alto whilst retaining most or all of their former soprano range. Boys in the past sometimes continued to sing in the soprano range even though they had largely completed puberty.21 Flexibility of laryngeal cartilage, a larynx that has not fully completed its descent from the childhood position and smaller tract volume than is found in the fully developed adult voice make this physically possible for trained singers, but the extent to which this remains culturally appropriate is debatable. The fact that adolescent boy sopranos are now very rare for cultural reasons is sometimes wrongly taken as evidence that the secular trend in pubertal timing has been much greater than it actually has. In any case, an expanded pubertal singing range is usually encountered only in boys who are regular choral singers.22 Boys who sing less frequently are more likely to shift to a lower tessitura and experience a much increased level of difficulty with management of the passagio between lower (‘chest’ or ‘thick’) and upper (‘head’ or ‘thin’) register.23 This often results in a limited or contracting tessitura in the lower register only.24 This tessitura is unsuitable for traditional choral singing, though schemes to maintain the interest of adolescent boys in vocal work, such as Irvin Cooper’s ‘Cambiata’ system make good use of it.25 Reluctance of adolescent boys to use their upper register in case they ‘sound like girls’ is also often reported, although in the author’s experience and research, this is seldom a problem for choral singers. Boys who enjoy choral singing usually enjoy it enough to ignore teasing or bullying of this nature. It was very clear in the study that differing views on how to maintain healthy voice use during the changes of puberty were held by different vocal coaches in different settings. Boys left choirs at quite different stages of puberty according to the approach taken. The ‘crisis’ therefore can be fairly readily interpreted as a turning point for vocal pedagogy as it

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wrestles to accommodate these relatively recent understandings. An extreme or fundamentalist interpretation of research on adolescent voices might terminate the careers of good boy singers needlessly soon.26 A careless approach that neglects to assess choir members fairly regularly may run the risk of failing to spot genuine vocal problems, or allowing boys to develop tension and incorrect muscle memory as they struggle to maintain their treble voices without really understanding what is happening to them.27 In summary though, it is reasonable to state that, other than perhaps by a few months difference overall, voices are not ‘breaking’ significantly sooner. The professional choral world is taking better care of them with the result that they are not ‘breaking’ at all. This, rather than any dramatic and biologically improbable advance in the timing of puberty is the turning point that needs to be passed.

The secularisation trend The secularisation trend, meaning a decline in the relative importance of liturgical singing for involving boys in choral singing has come about quite rapidly after a long period when boys’ voices enjoyed protected status in choral music. We can trace the involvement of boys in choral work back to ancient Jewish law that permitted women to sing in the home and in processions outside the Temple, but strictly forbade their ‘indecent’ voices within it. The association of boys’ voices with sacred liturgy has an ancestry dating back to the Talmud and the Levite servant boys. St Paul, being a child of his time, reiterated these ancient principles for Christianity with his decree that women should have no part at all in public ministry or that it is shameful for a woman to speak in church (1 Corinthians, 14:34; 1 Timothy, 2:11), a principle enshrined in the Edict of Milan of 313 CE. There is little doubt that the present status of the boy voice in choral work owes much to the prohibition of female voices until relatively recently.28 It is indeed a moot point as to whether the refined sound of boy trebles in choral work would ever have developed without what many would now see as this somewhat unfair advantage. English choral singing has nevertheless survived the arrival of girls’ voices in cathedral choirs. For a good number of people, the introduction of girls’ choir to Salisbury Cathedral in 1991 constituted a ‘crisis’ in itself. That particular turning point has come and gone. The majority of English cathedrals have girls’ choirs yet still maintain excellent boys’ choirs. It was at the most a minor crisis and it may have been a small one in relation to the potentially bigger crisis of secularisation.

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This has hit boys’ choral singing much harder than what many would say is merely the very long-delayed affording of equal rights to female singers. The reason this crisis has developed is because there is very little choral singing by boys outside the context of sacred music.29 Without the support and patronage of the church, a large part of boys’ choral singing lacks both purpose and resilience. The crisis that must be faced is that of how boys might be persuaded to sing religious words in a secular context. So much of the choral repertoire is sacred in origin, even if the context for its performance has been increasingly non-liturgical. Plenty of adult choirs sing canonical choral works in situations that do not require religious confession, even if the singers attest to the great spiritual (as opposed to religious) power of the music.30 Boys too can attest to the spiritual power of music,31 but introducing boys who would positively avoid any religious commitment to this kind of singing is a challenge of a quite different order than the maintenance of adult choral societies. To a not inconsiderable degree, the choral world has been insulated from this problem by another turning point that has crept up and passed with little comment. This is the division between professional and amateur choral singing. English cathedral choirs, and to a degree their counterparts in Germany, are considered professional by virtue of the fact that paid, trained adult singers are employed on a daily basis. The boys too sing a highly demanding and intensive schedule on an almost daily basis under professional tutelage and in receipt of significant bursaries towards the costs of their education.32 The historical precedents for this are also significant. The professional task of the cathedral choir is not to tour, make CD recordings or perform in the world’s great concert halls (though a good many of them do some if not all of these things). It is the opus dei (literally the work of God). Prior to the Reformation it was thought fit to embellish the daily offices with elaborate music, a tradition that has survived a few upheavals remarkably intact in England, though less so in most other European countries. Professional singers, or lay clerks, were employed to assist the ordained clerks in this opus dei.33 Boys were needed to sing the highest parts and, when not singing or receiving a menial vestige of education, were found other mundane tasks for their (Earthly) employer. A consequence of this is that no audience was or is required for the professional cathedral choir. This is quite reasonably not understood by the uninitiated who can see little point in a twenty-five strong choir ‘performing’ to a congregation of fewer than twenty at a weekday evensong. To be baffled by this is to miss the point of the opus dei. The opus dei will continue for as long as cathedral chapters are willing and

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able to fund it. Outside the cathedrals, where amateur singing of sacred choral works might take place, the situation is very different. During recent decades in England a curious situation has arisen. Professional cathedral choirs have continued to thrive, whilst their amateur counterparts in parish churches have fared very badly in comparison. Figures have been hard to come by, but an attempt was made recently by an organisation calling itself Treble Line to ascertain with some accuracy the current situation and future prospects in parish churches. Though a partisan organisation set up in defence of all-male parish choirs, Treble Line carried out the most objective and comprehensive survey of recent times.34 The survey found that only a very small number of parish churches, often themselves cathedral-like in status or aspiration, continue the fight to maintain a top line of boys. Treble Line puts the current number (2011) at about 60, down from the 144 estimated by its author in 1992. This represents an annual loss of about 4.4, confirmed by cases that continue to come to light anecdotally to the author. The survey also reported a range of from 7 to 36 in the number of boys in the surveyed choirs, with a median of 17. Taking this figure together with the estimate of 60 choirs extant, something in the region of 1,020 boys come into choral singing at an amateur level through the church. This is clearly very small in comparison with the national population of 9–14 year old boys and the impact will be minimal. One reason commonly given for the loss of boys is that singing is ‘uncool’ and dressing up in ‘frilly frocks’ makes a ‘girly’ activity even ‘girlier’.35 Evidence from the author’s own research suggests that this is to a degree misguided. Choirboys have always had to bear such taunts and most have done so over decades if not centuries with stoicism. Once initiated into quality choral singing, most boys care little about whether or not other boys think it ‘cool’.36 Aside from the decline in religious belief, itself associated with congregations increasingly on average beyond childbearing age, the difficulties in recruiting and retaining boys are more likely to be: 1. The huge amount of choice boys now have with regard to leisure time. 2. The dispersion of local community in a fragmented ‘post-modern’ society. 3. The big increase in homework and academic pressure. 4. The loss of Sunday and major Christian festivals as days of special status with the concomitant rise in Sunday sport – a magnet for

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most boys including ones who would otherwise happily sing in a choir. 5. The rise in the number of split families, including those where marginalized, absent fathers cling to sons through sport that competes with choir. 6. The introduction of worship songs perceived as trivial by boys previously willing to be challenged and made to feel ‘grown-up’ by the choral repertoire. 7. A loss of trust in the Church as a respectable institution, tragically accelerated by paedophile priest scandals and the regular uncovering of historic cases of abuse in settings where vulnerable young people learn music. Whilst these are the immediate difficulties confronting amateur choirs, there is a more longstanding undercurrent associated with the divide between professional and amateur in English sacred music. The Reformation set in process a movement for congregational participation in the music of parish churches that has proved largely unstoppable.37 Elaborate choral settings simply do not lend themselves to congregational participation and the reality has to be faced that in all but a few cases the choirs simply are not wanted.38 Whilst some amateur musicians may convince themselves that they too are performing the opus dei, the nature of amateur choral singing is that it tends to be performer centred. People sing in amateur choirs primarily because they enjoy singing, not because a concert audience or a dean and chapter are paying them to do so. The singers may enjoy their choral work, a sophisticated congregation forced to endure amateur choral singing of perhaps indifferent quality may not. The obvious and simplistic response to this is that boys’ choral singing needs to be secularised. For every church choir that goes out of existence, a new secular boys’ choir comes into being and the crisis is passed. Here, though, lies the great paradox at the core of the crisis. The repository of expertise that might be drawn upon to promote good choral singing by boys remains firmly within the Church. This was clearly illustrated by the recent National Singing Programme for English primary schools funded by the 1997–2010 new Labour government, popularly known as ‘SingUp’. SingUp promoted many initiatives across the country in order to achieve its core aim of rais(ing) the status of singing and increas(ing) opportunities for school children throughout the country to enjoy singing as part of their everyday lives, and … support(ing) all primary schools to become ‘singing schools’.39

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There is little doubt that SingUp enjoyed considerable success in this core aim, but it is not the aim that is needed to secure the future of boys’ choral work. There were two principal shortcomings in the SingUp approach. First, boys’ choral work flourishes mainly with the 9–13+ age group, whereas SingUp was targeted almost entirely at 5–11 primary schools. There was little serious provision for the lower forms of secondary school where such accomplished boy choral singers as might exist would be found. Second, the focus of SingUp was upon inclusion and universal participation rather than quality of choral work. The result of this was that the UK schools inspectorate OFSTED found that in spite of, or perhaps even because of, SingUp, standards of singing were no better than satisfactory in two thirds of the primary schools inspected. Typically, these schools viewed singing more as a participatory activity rather than as a vehicle for promoting pupils’ musical understanding.40 A key reason identified by OFSTED for this lack of quality was the dependence upon the ‘quick fix’ of downloadable backing tracks played by the class teacher rather than any sustained strategy to develop expertise in choral training. The nearest to an exception to this general picture comes from a particular part of the SingUp programme known as the ‘COP’ or Chorister Outreach Programme. COP had its origins in an initiative established by Truro Cathedral. On investigating the shortage of suitable applicants for chorister places, the cathedral authorities were somewhat taken aback by the lack of singing and music education in the local primary schools. Accordingly they devised an enterprising scheme that engaged three primary schools each term. Choristers from the cathedral would visit the primary schools and sing to and with the children. An animateur or singing leader was placed in the school for a term and the three schools joined together to participate in a concert in the cathedral. Other cathedrals such as Bristol began to copy this model,41 but the £10m out of the total £40m SingUp funding allowed it to be extended to almost all English cathedrals. An evaluation of the programme that employed the Rutkowski rating scale of singing voice development and the Welch rating scale of vocal pitch-matching development appeared to demonstrate that the highest singing development ratings achieved within SingUp were associated with the COP. The table below demonstrates the effect on mean normalized singing assessment of contact with the choral expertise of the cathedrals:

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Category Chorister COP school Other SingUp School Non-SingUp School

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Mean 90.346 82.619 74.132 70.941

The difference between choristers and primary school children who had contact with choristers was just below significance (p=0.053) whilst the difference between choristers and children not in contact with choristers was significant (p