Town in Austria, near Vienna. It is notable for its Augustinian abbey. Founded in 1108 by the Babenberg margraves, it was originally a collegiate chapter, close to the residence of St Leopold, Margrave of Austria. Although the residence was subsequently moved to Vienna, Klosterneuburg's commanding position on the Danube near the capital enabled the monks to participate fully in the cultural life of Vienna, especially during the Middle Ages. In 1133 the Augustinian canons were installed and from the first cultivated Gregorian chant, especially psalmody. The cantor was responsible for the quality of the singing at Vespers (the musical ability of novices could apparently determine their acceptance into the convent) and during the Middle Ages he took charge of the monastery in the prelate's absence, an indication of the importance of his position. The Babenberg dukes, who had a lively interest in the abbey, secured vast estates and a valuable library for it. The large number of important manuscripts in neumatic notation includes the oldest psalter in the library (A-KN 987, probably 11th century) which contains two delicately neumed Gregorian settings of the Requiem and a famous miniature (David and four angels making music); it probably came from Hildesheim. The many neume manuscripts of the 12th and subsequent centuries were almost certainly written in Klosterneuburg; one of them (KN 574) contains a notable Latin Easter play from the early 13th century (the first performance was possibly in 1204), long thought to be the oldest in the German-speaking area. It ends with the first verse of the hymn ‘Christ ist erstanden’.
The names of the abbey cantors (regens chori or director musices) can be traced only from the 15th century onwards; until then organists, calcants (responsible for pumping the bellows of the organ) and lay choral singers were not recorded. Wars and religious struggles during the 16th century caused a decline in cultural development. Gregorian chant was neglected in favour of polyphony and two manuscript collections of 15th- and 16th-century polyphonic music at Klosterneuburg contain works of Benedictus Ducis, Thomas Stoltzer, Finck, Stephan Mahu, Isaac, Arnold von Bruck and others. The library also contains music prints from Antwerp, including works by Philippe de Monte, George de La Hèle and Alard du Gaucquier, and a copy of Glarean's Dodecachordon. Early 17th-century accounts record the acquisition of musical instruments and employment of a teacher who taught the lay brothers the trombone; apparently there were also cornett players, singers and organists. The great organ of the abbey church was built by J.G. Freundt of Passau between 1636 and 1642 despite the Thirty Years War. He installed some of the pipes from a Gothic organ and used pre-Baroque specifications for some of the registers; it is considered the most valuable organ in Austria.
During the Baroque period Tafelmusik, popular in all Austrian monasteries, was presumably fostered at Klosterneuburg, but the archives contain little secular or sacred 17th-century music; most of the church music is from the 18th and 19th centuries. The Gothic buildings were partly demolished during the first half of the 18th century and a new monastery, designed in the magnificent high Baroque style of Austrian contemporary architecture, was planned. Emperor Charles VI showed great interest in the plans, for he wanted a second El Escorial created near Vienna. The monks slowed down the construction of such a castle and, as the edifice was not suitable for monastic purposes and they would have been unable to afford its maintenance, they decided, on the death of the emperor, to alter the plans. The ‘Austrian Escorial’ remained a torso.
Emperor Charles VI, himself a trained musician and composer, influenced the music performed in Klosterneuburg. The music library contains church compositions by various court musicians including the ‘Klosterneuburg Mass’ attributed to Fux (the authenticity remains questionable) and works by Georg von Reutter and Caldara. M.G. Monn was a pupil and choirboy of the abbey. The library also possesses works (mainly religious) by Jommelli, Holzbauer, Joseph and Michael Haydn, Mozart, Gassmann, Gyrowetz, Dittersdorf, Salieri, Albrechtsberger, Cherubini, Weber, Schubert and others.
During the last third of the 19th century Bruckner often visited the abbey and improvised on the Freundt organ. From 1910 to 1924 Klosterneuburg accommodated the church music department of the Vienna Akademie für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, whose director, Vinzenz Goller, became known as a composer of church music in Catholic countries. The regens chori, Andreas Weissenbäck, achieved some distinction as a musicologist and composer. From 1906 onwards the use of Gregorian chant has been re-established and based on Vatican usage. A popular Roman Catholic ‘liturgy in the vernacular’ movement started in Klosterneuburg in the 1930s and had some influence on the development of Austrian church music during the following decades.
A. Koczirz: ‘Klosterneuburger Lautenbücher’, Musica divina, i (1913), 176–7
H. Pfeiffer: ‘Das Klosterneuburger Osterspiel’, Musica divina, i (1913), 158–76
A. Weissenbäck: ‘Aus dem älteren Musikleben im Stifte Klosterneuburg’, Musica divina, i (1913), 153–8
H. Pfeiffer and B. Cernik: Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum, qui in Bibliotheca Canonicorum Regularium S. Augustini Claustroneoburgi asservantur (Vienna, 1922–31)
V.O. Ludwig: Klosterneuburg, Stadt und Stift (Klosterneuburg, 1927)
L. Schabek: Alte liturgische Gebräuche in Klosterneuburg (Klosterneuburg, 1930)
V.O. Ludwig: Klosterneuburg: Kulturgeschichte eines österreichischen Stiftes (Vienna, 1951)
E. Badura-Skoda: ‘Zur musikalischen Vergangenheit Klosterneuburgs’, Festschrift Klosterneuburger Kulturtage 1959, 41–7
W. Lipphardt: ‘Studien zur Musikpflege in den mittelalterlichen Augustiner-Chorherrenstiften des deutschen Sprachgebietes’, Jb des Stiftes Klosterneuburg, new ser., vii (1971), 7–102
F. Jakob: Die Fest-Orgel in der Stiftskirche Klosterneuburg: Geschichte und Restaurierung der Freund-Orgel von 1642 (Vienna, 1990)
EVA BADURA-SKODA