|
Freiburger Bachchor (The Freiburg Bach Choir) was created in the winter semester 1943-1944 as student choir at the Freiburg University by Theodor Egel. After intensive term work the choir sang on March 5, 1944 in the Freiburg Cathedral Matthäus-Passion (BWV 244) of J.S. Bach. 39 years later directed Theodor Egel for the last time at the same place the same work. Between these two performances are situated an extremely rich, in the meantime already almost legendary history of musical work and artistic success. Freiburger Bachchor did not only become a coining/shaping institution of the culture life of its hometown and the surrounding region, but it also excited large attention with numerous concerts abroad in Europe and in the USA.
In 1983 Theodor Egel transferred the line of the Freiburger Bachchor to Hans-Michael Beuerle. The many concerts, which the choir gave since then in the region and abroad (Switzerland, France, Italy, Great Britain, Ukraine), show that Beürle succeeded to resume the fastidious tradition of this ensemble.
In the meantime the repertoire compiled by Hans-Michael Beuerle with the Freiburger Bachchor covers a majority of the important oratorio literature from 18th to the 20th centuries: all oratorios and some cantatas of J.S. Bach, George Frideric Handel’s Messiah and Israel in Egypt; Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Magnificat, Haydn’s The Creation and The Seasons, the Mozart’s Requiem and Missa c-molI; L.v. Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis; Schubert’s Es-Dur-Messe, Schumann’s Faustszenen and Requiem für Mignon, Verdi’s Requiem Bruckner’s f-moll Mass, Johannes Brahms’ Requiem, Alto Rhapsody, Schicksalslied und Nänie, Felix Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht and Eliah, Arnold Schoenberg’s Modern Psalm and Penderecki’s Dies irae.
Freiburger Bachchor celebrated a special success in the initialization concert in 1971, and at the Bach Festival of the New Bach Company in November 1996 in the Freiburg Cathedral with the premiere of Wolfgang Rihm’s oratorio Maximum est unum. |
