History
In 1498, more than half a millennium ago, Emperor Maximilian I moved
his court and his court musicians from Innsbruck to Vienna . He gave
specific instructions that there were to be six boys among his musicians.
For want of a foundation charter, historians have settled on 1498 as
the official foundation date of the Vienna Hofmusikkapelle and - in
consequence - the Vienna Boys' Choir. Until 1918, the choir sang exclusively
for the court, at mass, at private concerts and functions and on state
occasions.
Musicians like Heinrich Isaac, Paul Hofhaimer,
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Johann Joseph Fux, Christoph Willibald Gluck,
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Caldara, Antonio Salieri and Anton
Bruckner worked with the choir. Composers Jacobus Gallus, Franz Schubert,
and conductors Hans Richter, Felix Mottl and Clemens Krauss were themselves
choristers. Brothers Joseph and Michael Haydn were members of the choir
of St. Stephen's Cathedral, and sang frequently with the imperial boys'
choir.
In 1918, after the breakdown of the Habsburg
empire, the Austrian government took over the court opera (i.e. the
opera, its orchestra and the adult singers), but not the choir boys.
The Wiener Sängerknaben owe their survival to the initiative of
Josef Schnitt, who became Dean of the Imperial Chapel in 1921. Schnitt
established the boys' choir as a private institution: the former court
choir boys became the Wiener Sängerknaben, the imperial uniform
was replaced by the sailor suit, then the height of boys' fashion. Funding
was not enough to pay for the boys' upkeep, and in 1926 the choir started
to give concerts outside of the chapel, performing motets, secular works,
and - at the boys' request - children's operas. The impact was amazing:
Within a year, the Wiener Sängerknaben were performing in Berlin
(where Erich Kleiber conducted them), Prague and Zurich . Athens and
Riga (1928) followed, then Spain , France , Denmark , Norway and Sweden
(1929), the United States (1932), Australia (1934) and South America
(1936).
Today there are around 100 choristers between
the ages of ten and fourteen, divided into four touring choirs. The
four choirs give around 300 concerts and performances each year in front
of almost half a million people. Each group spends nine to eleven weeks
of the school year on tour. They visit virtually all European countries,
and they are frequent guests in Asia, Australia and the Americas .
Together with members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna
State Opera Chorus, the Wiener Sängerknaben maintain the tradition
of the imperial musicians: as Hofmusikkapelle they provide the music
for the Sunday Mass in Vienna 's Imperial Chapel, as they have done
since 1498.
The choir is a private, not-for-profit
organisation. The eight members of the choir's governing body oversee
its development and guarantee its future. Dr. Eugen Jesser became the
choir's president in 2001, and its director in 2003. Gerald Wirth became
the choir's artistic director in 2001.