Wiener Sängerknaben (Vienna Boys Choir)
Artistic Director: Gerald Wirth • Director: Dr. Eugen Jesser.
Boys have been singing at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor since the fifteenth century. In 1498 the court moved from Innsbruck to Vienna and the Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian requested twelve boy singers to join his courtmusicians; ever since, the year 1498 is regarded as the official foundation date of the Imperial Chapel and the Vienna Boys’ Choir (Wiener Sängerknaben). The imperial court attracted musicians such as Isaac, Haydn, Mozart, Salieri, Schubert, and Bruckner, some of whom were themselves choristers.
Until 1918 the Chapel performed exclusively for the court. After the dissolution of the Hapsburg Empire in 1918, the Austrian government took over the Court Opera but not the choirboys. The choir owes its survival to the initiative of Josef Schnitt, who established the choir as a private institution, in which the former court choirboys became the Wiener Sängerknaben and the imperial uniform was replaced by the sailor suit, the height of boys' fashion at that time.
Today there are around a hundred choristers between the ages of ten and fourteen, divided into four touring choirs. The choirs give around three hundred concerts each year, attended by almost half a million people around the world. The repertoire includes everything from Gregorian chant to popular music, as well as children’s operas. Together with members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera Chorus, the choir provides the music for the Sunday Mass in Vienna’s Imperial Chapel, as they have done since 1498. Since the 1930s the Vienna Boys’ Choir has been recording film music, and has contributed to the soundtracks of major motion pictures in Austria, Germany, Japan and the United States.
