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  • Music from the Berlin Sing-Akademie
  • Daniel F. Boomhower
Carl Heinrich Graun. “Ich suchte den, den meine Seele liebet”: Kantate zum ersten Ostertag, GraunWV B:IX:5, für Soli (SATB), Chor (SATB), zwei Oboen (Oboe d’amore), zwei Violinen, Viola und Basso continuo. Herausgegeben von Tobias Schwinger. (Quellenpublikationen aus dem Archiv der Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, Bd. 3.) Beeskow: Ortus Musikverlag, 2011. [Editorial in Ger. and Eng., p. vi–vii; pref. in Ger., p. viii–xi; crit. report in Ger., p. xii–xiv; plates, p. xv–xviii; score, p. 1–53. ISMN M-700296-63-6, 979-0-700296-63-6; pub. no. OM 114. €18.50.]
Johann Theile. Der Sionitin Wiegenlied: “Nun, ich singe, Gott, ich knie,” für vier Singstimmen (SATB), drei Violen, Violone (zwei Violinen, Viola, Violoncello) und Basso continuo. Herausgegeben von Ekkehard Krüger. (Quellenpublikationen aus dem Archiv der Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, Bd. 4.) Beeskow: Ortus Musikverlag, 2011. [Editorial in Ger. and Eng., p. vi–vii; pref. in Ger., p. viii–ix; text in Ger., p. x; crit. report in Ger., p. xi; plates, p. xii–xiii; score, p. 1–10, and 6 parts. ISMN 979-0-700317-04-1; pub. no. OM 135. €15.00.]
Johann Christian Roellig. “Uns ist ein Kindlein geboren”: Kantate für den 1. Weihnachtstag, für Soli (SATB), Chor (SATB), zwei Trompeten, Pauken, zwei Hörner, Flöte, zwei Oboen, Fagott, zwei Violinen, Viola und Basso continuo. Herausgegeben von Klaus Winkler. (Quellenpublikationen aus dem Archiv der Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, Bd. 5.) Beeskow: Ortus Musikverlag, 2012. [Editorial in Ger. and Eng., p. vi–vii; pref. in Ger., p. viii; text in Ger., p. ix; crit. report in Ger., p. x–xi; plates, p. xii–xiii; score, p. 1–72. ISMN 979-0-700317-34-8; pub. no. OM139. €29.90.]

At the time of Carl Friedrich Zelter’s death in 1832, the music collection of the Sing-Akademie in Berlin stood as perhaps the most tangible representation of how its late director influenced musical life in the Prussian capital. Even in the waning years [End Page 566] of the Enlightenment, a sensitivity toward a historical musical repertory had begun to emerge in Berlin. After his ascension to the throne in 1740, King Frederick II of Prussia explicitly imitated the Saxon court at Dresden, and in doing so promoted a less than innovative state music. Ironically, upon invading Saxony in 1756 in what became known as the Seven Years’ War, music at Frederick II’s court stagnated. Until the end of his reign in 1786, almost all music heard at the Prussian Royal Opera was composed by either Carl Heinrich Graun, who died in 1759, or Johann Adolph Hasse. Some hosts of musical salons mimicked the staid musical fashions of the court, in part to curry favor or standing in Berlin. Meanwhile, several musicians, particularly Johann Philipp Kirnberger, cultivated a different strand of veneration for the musical past, focused to a great extent on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

However, it was Zelter who institutionalized music historicism in Berlin. At least from the time of his appointment as director of the Sing-Akademie in 1800, Zelter further expanded the audience for music of the past to the educated upper middle class, and constituted the Sing-Akademie as a means of self improvement or cultivation (Bildung). In order that private choral rehearsals would support the attainment of Bildung, the collection needed to include examples of great historic music. Thus, Zelter amassed an impressive array of music, containing repertoire dating back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and extending well beyond just a performance collection.

In the Sing-Akademie’s collection of music, past masters held pride of place. But, despite the growing interest in historical music among a broader segment of the population, the music collection of the Sing-Akademie had remained throughout the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century a collection available only to select members of the private choral society. By the time the collection was removed from Berlin to protect it from bombing raids during World War II, few scholars had examined its contents, despite increasing awareness among musicologists of the richness of...

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