Saengerfest, also Sängerbund-Fest, Sängerfeste, or Sängerfest, meaning singer festival, is a competition of Sängerbunds, or singer groups, with prizes for the best group or groups. Participants number in the hundreds and thousands, and the fest is usually accompanied by a parade and other celebratory events. The sängerfest is most associated with the Germanic culture, and the music selection is usually that of German composers. It's origins trace back to 19th Century Europe, popularized in part by university students who chose the art form to make political statements. A less politicized version of the tradition was brought to the North American continent by European emigrants in the same century. In the early part of the 20th Century, sängerfest celebrations drew devotees in the tens of thousands, and included some United States Presidents among their audiences. Sängerbunds are still active in communities with Germanic heritage.
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It is thought that the sängerfest had its beginnings in Hambach, Bavaria, possibly in 1830, or as part of the Hambach Festival of 1832.[1] However, the foundations were being laid earlier in Europe. Composer Hans Georg Nägeli,[2] who died in 1836, helped form several sängerbunds in Switzerland and was the basis for the Stuttgart Liederkranz (male voice choir).[3] Male-only choral celebrations with hundreds, even thousands, of vocalists were popular with the masses and often part of political events in the era following the 1819 Carlsbad Decrees in Germany.[4] Composer Friedrich Silcher used such large choirs to express political viewpoints as far back as 1824 when he and a group of Tübingen University students performed La Marseillaise to commemorate the storming of the Bastille. In 1827 at Plochingen, several male-voiced choirs combined for a regional sängerfest.[3]
Gnadenfeld Church choir director Wilhelm Neufeld held a Mennonite sängerfest in Rückenau in Molotschna, Ukraine on May 29, 1894.[5][6]
The Philadelphia Männerchor (1835–1962)[7] founded by German immigrant Phillip Matthias Wohlseiffer was the first German-American singing society organized in the United States. In 1836, Wohlseiffer founded the Baltimore Liederkranz, which became the first to accept women members (1838). In 1846, the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania group and the Baltimore, Maryland group performed together at a public sängerfest.[8] The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac of 1891 listed numerous sängerbunds in the Brooklyn, New York area.[9] On June 21, 1901, the Nord-Amerikanischer Sängerbund presented a sängerfest in Buffalo, New York at the Pan-American Exposition. A group in Buffalo hoped to help pay the expenses of the fest by forming the Buffalo Sängerfest Company, selling 1,600 shares of stock at $25 each.[10]
Der deutsche Gesangverein (German Singing Association) was organized in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1838. Sängerfest Hall, also known as Cincinnati Exposition Hall, was built by architects Hannaford, Samuel & Sons in the Venetian Gothic style. The hall served a variety of purposes until it was converted to a music hall in 1876.[11] The Cincinnati Liedertafel and Gesang und Bildungsverein (Singing and Education) groups participated in the 1846 festival held by the United Singers of Cincinnati. Louisville Liederkranz founder Fritz Volkmar invited all groups in 1849 to a sängerfest in Cincinnati. The first post-Civil War sängerfest in Columbus, Ohio took place August 29 – September 1, 1865 at Schreiner's Hall and the Opera House. Each arriving sängerbund was escorted to the hall by the Eighteenth regiment of the United States Infantry. There were an estimated 400 singers entertaining 12,000 to 15,000 attendees. The closing day of the fest was full of pomp and circumstance with a parade and speeches.[12]
Groups from Ohio, Kentucky, Maryland and Indiana created the Nord-Amerikanischer (North American) Sängerbund. By 1908, it was estimated that 250,000 German Americans belonged to musical organizations, and 50,000 of those belonged to the Nord-Amerikanischer Sängerbund.[13]
The first festival in Texas was held in 1853 in New Braunfels, and held annually until 1860 when conflicting loyalties about, and participation in, the War Between the States caused a 10-year gap in the events. The San Antonio Männergesang-Verein was formed in 1847,[14] while the New Braunfels Gesangverein Germania formed in 1850,[15] and the Austin Männerchor, formed in 1852.[15] On July 4, 1853 in San Antonio, the San Antonio Männergesang-Verein sponsored an Independence Day celebration that was also attended by the New Braunfels Gesangverein and the Austin Männerchor. The New Braunfels Gesangverein invited everyone to meet in New Braunfels October 16-17, 1853 for its first Texas Sängerfest.[16] In 1854, the aggregate sängerbunds formed the Texas State Sängerbund.[17][18] The San Antonio Beethoven Männerchor was organized in 1867 by Wilhelm Thielepape, assistant conductor of the San Antonio Männergesang-Verein. After the surrender of the Confederacy in 1865, Thielepape raised the Union flag over the Alamo and passed out wine and songbooks.[19][20]
The all-male Houston Sängerbund was founded Oct. 6, 1883 and chartered in 1890. It affiliated itself with Der Deutsch-Texanische Sängerbund (German-Texan Sängerbund). In 1887, founding member Carl C. Zeus served as principal of the organization's German-English school.[21][17][22][23]
At their peak, the sängerfests were prestige events. President and Mrs. Grover Cleveland and guests took a special train from Washington, D.C. on July 4, 1888, to see a Baltimore event. Cleveland had friends who were members of the sängerbunds.[24] President Howard Taft attended the July 1, 1912 event in Philadelphia.[25] On June 15, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt and Ambassador Herman Speck Von Sternberg[26] attended a sängerfest of 6,000 individual singers at Baltimore's Armory Hall. All 9,000 seats were sold out. The President delivered an address praising the German culture and the sängerfest tradition.[27][28] The Northeastern Sängerbund presented selections by composers Herman Spielter, David Melamet, Carl Friedrich Zöllner, E.S. Engelsberg, Felix Mendelssohn and Richard Wagner.[29]
So popular were these sängerfests among the public, that when Newark, New Jersey announced the 21st National Sängerfest to be held on July 1-4, 1906 in Olympic Park, 25,000 people showed up to hear the music, many arriving on chartered trains. Only a few thousand were able to get into the hall, and 2,000 of those were standing. 5,000 singers from more than a hundred sängerbunds representing forty cities from New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware competed for a $20,000 prize offered by Kaiser Wilhelm II.[30] Park vendors offered souvenirs, refreshments, games and a carousel.[31]
Similar festivals have also been held in Canada since 1862, with the most prominent of these being in Berlin (later Kitchener) in Ontario.[32] In 1916, a convicted bigamist and deserter from the United States Army named Max Lymer Louden aka Count Louden told an American district attorney an interesting story. Louden claimed he had been hired by a group of wealthy German Americans with a secret fund of $16,000,000 to take 150,000 German reservists, incognito as sängerbunds, across the Canada-United States border for a coup d'état of Canada on bahalf of Kaiser Wilhelm II. If they drew suspicion, they were prepared to "sing at a moment's notice." It was his loyalty to America, he claimed, which caused him to desert the Kaiser's singing invasion force as he had also deserted the United States Army.[33]
Although some local festivals were canceled or suspended during the years of World War I and World War II due to rising anti-German sentiment, the sängerfest tradition has largely survived, and many communities have sängerfests today. Many of these are in areas with a high German population, such as Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which hosted its 49th Sängerfest in 2006 with the help of the Nordöstlicher Sängerbund. The 50th Sängerfest, hosted by the Washington Saengerbund, took place 2009 Memorial Day Weekend in Washington, D.C. The Houston Sängerbund continues to thrive, as do many sängerbunds in the states of Texas, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Wisconsin and other areas.[21][34]