City in Germany. Medieval Dresden developed from a fishing village on the right bank of the Elbe inhabited by Slavonic Sorbs (later known as Altendresden, and today as Dresden-Neustadt), which merged with several German settlements on the left bank of the river. They comprised the settlement around the imperial estate and the harbour of the Elbe; the stone basilica ‘Zu unserer lieben Frau’ (the Frauerkirche, c1150); the merchants' settlement with the Nikolaikirche (c1170); and the district administered by the burgraves of Dohna, which also defended the stone bridge built over the Elbe around 1220 and the palace (c1265) of the margraves of Meissen. The margraves, territorial lords of the area, became electors of Saxony in 1423 and made Dresden their permanent residence in 1460. Altendresden acquired the status of a town in 1403 and became part of the city of Dresden in 1549. Between 1485 (when Saxony was divided by the Leipzig Partition), and 1918 Dresden was the residence of the princes of the Albertine branch of the house of Wettin, who ruled as electors of Saxony until 1806 and then as kings of Saxony until 1918. Between 1919 and 1952, and again after 1990, Dresden was capital of the free state of Saxony, and the city was capital of the area under the German Democratic Republic between 1952 and 1990.
WOLFRAM STEUDE (1), MANFRED FECHNER (2), HANS-GÜNTER OTTENBERG (3), HANS JOHN (4), DIETER HÄRTWIG/MATTHIAS HERRMANN (5)
(ii) Municipal music and the Stadtkapelle.
The Frauenkirche, Dresden’s oldest ecclesiastical foundation, served a large area as parish church until the coming of the Reformation in 1539, but after the 13th century it was surpassed in size and magnificence by the Nikolaikirche, later known as the Kreuzkirche. The Frauenkirche (fig.1) lay outside the city walls. Documentary evidence shows that mass was celebrated there from the 14th century, sometimes with liturgical music. The church acquired a new organ in 1556 and again in 1616. Sacred music was sung between 1559 and 1896 by the pupils of the Kreuzschule, the choir school of the Kreuzkirche, often with the assistance of the town musicians and under the direction of the Kreuzkantor or one of the assistant masters at the school. The Frauenkirche had its own Kantorat from 1896 to 1945, and a boys’ choir continued to exist until the end of World War I, succeeded by a mixed choir after 1925. The church had its own organists from 1601.
The Kreuzkirche is the second oldest church in Dresden. It was founded around 1170 as the Nikolaikirche in the merchants’ quarter, the present Altmarkt (fig.2). After 1234 Margrave Heinrich der Erlauchte donated a relic of the Cross, which was venerated in the Capellae Sanctae Crucis, probably added to the church around 1260. The veneration of this relic, first mentioned in the records in 1299, was associated with pilgrimages and indulgences. It is not known whether, as has previously been assumed, the resultant increase in liturgical services led to the founding of a choir school from which the Kreuzchor and Kreuzschule developed; the date 1216 usually given for the foundation of both institutions cannot be confirmed. The first known rector of the school, Cunradus, is mentioned in a document of 1300. In 1388 the church was reconsecrated, and its name was changed to the Kreuzkirche. The Dresden patrician Lorenz Busmann set up an endowment in 1398 for the pupils of the choir school to sing the Salve regina and O crux every evening; the latter was probably one of the antiphons O crux benedictaor O crux splendidior cunctis astris. These Vespers continued until 1539. The choir was directed first by the rector, then by his collaboratores and locati; no Kantor was officially appointed until 1539. The first notable rector of the Kreuzschule was Petrus Faulfisch, known as Petrus Dresdensis (1409–12), who came to Meissen from Prague. He was then expelled from Meissen again for Hussite heresy in 1412, and was burnt as a heretic at Regensburg in 1421. According to Johann Mathesius (Sarepta, Nuremburg, 1571) he wrote three-part introits. The theory that he wrote the German Latin hymns In dulci jubilo and Quem pastores laudavere was refuted in the 19th century.
The pupils of the Kreuzschule were already singing figural music before 1500. Records show that the court made payments to the choristers from 1470 to 1483, and they must also have performed polyphonic music in the Kreuzkirche, perhaps with the three wind players who according to the oldest Dresden municipal records (1420) were required to perform 29 times a year with the ‘great organ’. At the consecration in 1499 of the late Gothic Kreuzkirche, built after the fire of 1491, they sang with ‘24 journeymen’; from about 1480 they performed for the great midsummer festival, and from 1498 acted a play of St Dorothea. From 1471 they sang O quam suavis es Domine and O magnum mysterium at the Corpus Christi procession. On 6 July 1539, at the first Lutheran service held in the Kreuzkirche, the boys of the Kreuzschule sang ‘figured’ settings of the Introit, Kyrie, Gloria, Alleluia and the Trinity sequence Benedicta semper sancta sit Trinita. The pupils were divided into several choirs which were also required to provide music for other Dresden churches. The pauperes, poor boys, earned their board and school fees by singing in the streets, a custom not abolished until 1848. The Kreuzchor continued to sing at divine service after the church became Lutheran in 1539, and it remains one of their main functions to this day. Singing at funerals was discontinued in the 19th century. Adult ‘assistants’ sang with the choirboys at church services after 1559, and the town musicians joined them at the same time.
An organist is first mentioned in the records in 1370, and there are mentions of organae in 1371, probably referring to the ‘great organ’ mentioned in connection with the wind players in 1420 and a smaller organ recorded in 1462. A new organ was installed by Casper Coler of Pirna in 1494, and enlarged in 1503. In 1512 Blasius Lehmann of Bautzen built another large organ, demolished in 1729. In 1642–4 Tobias Weller installed a further organ, which was destroyed in the fire of 1760. After its destruction in the Seven Years War, the Kreuzkirche was rebuilt in the late Baroque style by J.G. Schmidt and C.F. Exner; the work was completed between 1792 and 1800.
The Sophienkirche (fig.3), the third oldest church in Dresden, was the church of the Franciscan monastery founded by Margrave Heinrich der Erlauchte in 1265. Work on the building of the double-naved Gothic church began in 1351. Until the secularization of the monastery the only music heard in this church, apart from the organ, was Gregorian chant. After 1599, at the instigation of the Electress Sophie, municipal services were held in the church, which had stood unused since 1539. From 1601 to 1695 its organ was played by the organists of the Frauenkirche, using the newly installed instrument after 1622. Later the Sophienkirche had its own organists, who held the post as a municipal appointment until the destruction of the church in 1945. The choirboys of the Kreuzschule were required to provide music in the church from 1610 until 1923, when it acquired a Kantorat of its own. The palace Kapelle was closed down and secularized in 1737, and from then until 1918 the Sophienkirche was also the Protestant court church.
The Dreikönigskirche, first mentioned in 1421, was the parish church of Altendresden and had a school connected with it. A schoolmaster is first recorded in 1431, and in 1465 a foundation required him and his pupils to sing the Salve regina once a day, probably following the example of the Kreuzkirche Vespers. In 1489 Caspar Coler of Pirna installed an organ, which was enlarged in 1504–5 and rebuilt in 1606. An illuminated missal of around 1500 was preserved in the city library until 1945. Following the Reformation the parish school became a municipal Lateinschule (1539); from 1543 the teachers included a Kantor as well as the rector, and an organist after 1544. Of the school’s rectors, Paul Preschner (c1538–86) was also a composer, as was the Kantor Joseph Schlegel (1529–93), who wrote a four-part Passio germanica and a series of motets printed as XII Psalme aus der Heiligen Schrift (Mülhausen, 1578). After the great city fire of 1685 Altendresden was renamed Neue Königs-Stadt and later Dresden-Neustadt; a new organ by J.H. Gräbner was installed in the rebuilt Dreikönigskirche. The church and its school burnt down on 13 February 1945. The church, rebuilt in a modified form, was consecrated in 1991.
The Heilig-Geist-Hospital, founded in the 13th century, acquired a chapel dedicated to St Bartholomew in the 14th century. It was replaced in 1519 by a new building with a singers’ gallery and a positive organ. In 1563 the town council founded a ‘German school’ (as distinct from a ‘Lateinschule’ teaching Latin) associated with the hospital. The chapel, now too small, was replaced at the instigation of Electress Anna by a new building, known after her as the Annenkirche. The pupils of the Kreuzschule, together with the Stadtpfeifer, performed six-part motets by Clemens non Papa and Lassus at its consecration. The church was burnt down in 1760 when the Prussians turned their heavy artillery on Dresden, and was replaced by J.G. Schmidt’s fine Baroque building of 1763–9, which underwent various modifications and survived World War II.
The early history of the Stadtpfeifer, the members of the Dresden Stadtpfeiferei, or town band, is obscure. The ‘Türmer’ or ‘Hausmann’ of the Kreuzkirche had the usual duties of that office: raising the alarm in case of fire or war, ringing the bells and acting as time-keeper, and blowing a horn at set times of day. It is difficult to be sure whether the three wind players mentioned in the municipal records of 1420 in connection with the ‘great organ’ of the Kreuzkirche were town or court musicians. The palace could not easily have dispensed with their services at court, particularly on days of church festivals, and it seems more likely that they were municipal employees. Curiously, the Stadtpfeifer of Leipzig were engaged to play in Dresden for the midsummer festivities of 1522; evidently their Dresden counterparts were not competent enough. The ensemble was reorganized in 1572, when four wind players were engaged to perform from the tower and ‘strengthen and enhance’ the choir of the Kreuzschule with their instruments on feast days and Sundays, at weddings and on other occasions ‘when figural music is performed’, as well as doing the usual guard duties.
The repertory of the Stadtpfeifer in the late 16th and early 17th centuries consisted of instrumental music, chorales and polyphonic sacred music, as well as the many madrigals they arranged for their instruments, which included crumhorns, pipes, dulcians, cornetts and trumpets. When Emperor Matthias visited the city in 1617, and at other great court festivities such as weddings and royal visits, the members of the Dresden ensemble played with musicians from the nearby towns of Meissen, Pirna and Freiberg. In Dresden, as elsewhere, the town musicians struggled to preserve their statutory rights (for instance, playing at weddings) in the face of competition from such other groups as court musicians, regimental bands, and ‘town fiddlers’. Around 1620 there were five town musicians in Dresden (a master and his journeymen and apprentices), a figure rising to 12 at the end of the 18th century, 15 in 1810, between 24 and 30 after 1816, and 40 later in the century. A decree of 1606 required the Stadtpfeifer to assist when sacred music was performed, and from 1675 they had to play for half an hour with the Kreuzchor before the bells rang for divine service on the three great festivals of the church. They also had to help with the performance of sacred music in the Sophienkirche and Frauenkirche when the superintendent came to preach there, and they were required to play in the Dreikönigskirche once every six weeks.
Under Margrave Dietrich der Bedrängte (ruled 1197–1221), son-in-law of Landgrave Hermann of Thuringia, who had organized the legendary Wartburg song contest, the citadel of Meissen not only had political and ecclesiastical importance but also gained a reputation as a centre of art and music. In the winter of 1210–11 Walther von der Vogelweide stayed in Meissen, and so for some time did Heinrich von Morungen, who may also have visited Dresden. Dietrich’s son Margrave Heinrich III der Erlauchte reigned from 1221 to 1288, residing in Dresden from time to time after 1255 and making it his permanent residence after 1276. Heinrich wrote sacred songs and was also a Minnesinger. The Heidelberg Manesse Manuscript contains six of his songs (words only). In 1254 Pope Innocent IV approved settings of the Kyrie and Gloria written by Heinrich for liturgicial use. It is likely that Reinmar von Zweter and Frauenlob (born in Meissen, d 1316) spent some time at his court in Meissen, and perhaps visited Dresden too. Heinrich der Erlauchte and his sons Friedrich Clemme and Dietrich der Weise are thought to have commissioned Albrecht von Scharfenberg’s Der jüngere Titurel, the continuation of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Titurel fragment. Heinrich probably had instrumentalists available at his court. The great tournaments of Nordhausen in 1263, Meissen in 1265 and Merseburg in 1268 are unlikely to have taken place without wind players.
The 14th century, with the Black Death of 1349 and dynastic struggles in Meissen, allowed little opportunity for artistic development. From 1368 to 1379 the brothers Friedrich der Strenge, Balthasar and Wilhelm I jointly ruled the Mark of Meissen; after 1382 Wilhelm ruled alone, and the records show that in 1386 he had fistulatores, vigellatores and tympanatores (pipers, fiddlers and drummers) at his court. This is the first evidence that musicians were permanently employed there.
After 1464 the palace of Dresden was the centre from which the brothers Elector Ernst and Duke Albrecht administered the Wettin territories. The existence of a musical ensemble at court for the years 1482–5 was established by Matthias Herrmann in 1987. After 1470 at the latest, figural church music was performed at court, directed by the cantor uf der schulen and sung by the koer schulern, probably with clerics who held court posts. According to the records, the future Kreuzchor was already singing polyphonic music around 1470. The court tailor’s accounts for 1482 mention drey cantorii jungen and ein clein singer, and there were also pipers, usually a trumpeter, and a lutenist. After 1475 the palace Kapelle had a wooden pipe organ from Memmingen, and one Meister Anthonius later installed another organ. The Leipzig Partition of the Wettin territories ruled by the two brothers took place in 1485. The Hofkapelle probably moved to Torgau with Elector Ernst, and was gradually restructured after 1486 under Elector Friedrich der Weise. It reached its prime under Adam von Fulda, Adam Rener, Paul Hofhaimer and Johann Walter (i) before being dissolved by Elector Johann der Beständige about 1525. There seems to have been no figural music apart from organ playing at the Albertine court in Dresden under Duke Albrecht and (from 1500) Duke Georg der Bärtige. Johannes Cochlaeus, court chaplain and secretary to the duke from 1528 to 1535, was the author of several important works of music theory and a prominent opponent of the Lutheran Reformation.
The first composer from the Dresden area who produced a considerable number of works which are still extant, or preserved in part, was Matthias Eckel. He was probably less active as a practising musician while at the court of Duke Georg in Leipzig and Dresden than when he moved to the Freiberg court of Duke Heinrich der Fromme, who had converted to Lutheranism. Eckel remained at Freiberg until his death in 1537. The records show that there were court trumpeters, pipers and timpanists at the electoral court of Saxony after 1469; these received great acclaim at the famous Amberg wedding of 1474, which they attended in the retinue of the Saxon princes. Nothing like their clarino playing, ‘as high as may be imagined’, had ever been heard before (Herrmann, 1987, p.75).
During his short reign (1539–41) Duke Heinrich officially introduced the Reformation into the duchy of Saxony. However, music did not achieve prominence at the Dresden court until the Hofkapelle was refounded in Dresden on 22 September 1548 by Elector Moritz (reigned 1541–53), who had attained electoral rank in 1547 during the reorganization of what was now the most important of the Wettin courts. The court trumpeters’ ensemble was probably the oldest musical institution at court. Under Moritz it was enlarged into a body of eight or nine trumpeters and one timpanist, and under Elector August (1553–86) consisted of nine or ten trumpeters and one timpanist. From 1586, when Elector Christian I succeeded, until after 1800 the Saxon court trumpeters’ ‘Kameradschaft’ consisted of one principal trumpeter, 12 court and field trumpeters, and one or two timpanists. It claimed to be the highest-ranking of all such trumpeters’ ensembles in the Holy Roman Empire, and described itself as an ‘Oberkameradschaft’. Its statutes were ratified or renewed at the Regensburg Reichstag in 1623, 1630 and 1646, and its constitution, extended in 1653 from 11 to 22 articles, remained in force until 1831 (the date of the first Saxon constitution and the repeal of compulsory guild membership). The Elector of Saxony, as ‘Reichserzmarschall’, was the highest representative of all German court trumpeters. In the 16th and 17th centuries musicians of the Hofkapelle were recruited to play figural music with trumpets (there were two ‘musical trumpeters’ in the time of Schütz). In 1816 musicians from the Hofkapelle are again mentioned as trumpeters. After 1834 the court trumpeters took part in few significant musical events; their duties were confined to blowing signals and performing in processions. The ancient body of court trumpeters was finally disbanded in 1918. Of the 30 valuable silver trumpets dating from the middle of the 18th century and still extant in 1911, eight have been preserved in Dresden, in the Kunstgewerbemuseum at Schloss Pillnitz, and two in the National Museum, Prague.
Johann Walter (i) was appointed Kapellmeister of the Hofkantorei when it was refounded in 1548. He had been a member of the old Ernestine Hofkapelle in Torgau until 1525/6, and with his Geystliches gesangk Buchleyn (1524) had laid the foundations for a new Evangelical repertory there, extending it further between 1528 and 1548 as Kantor of the first Evangelical civic Kantorei in Torgau, and bringing it to Dresden with him. It included works that had been part of the musical repertory of the Ernestine Hofkapelle. His important Magnificat cycle, not printed until 1557, was probably written in Dresden. Walter also laid the foundations for the tradition of setting and performing historiae to German Lutheran texts; this genre continued to flourish in the palace chapel until 1697, and in Evangelical central Germany as a whole until the 19th century. After Walter’s Passions, settings were composed by Jacobus Haupt (mentioned in documentary records as a singer in the Dresden Kapelle in 1548 and 1555, and later as a pastor), who wrote a responsorial St Matthew Passion before 1560 (D-As); Antonio Scandello; Rogier Michael (two Passions, now lost); Christoph Bernhard (1663, lost); Schütz (all three Passions 1665–6), and Peranda (1668). The Resurrection historia by Jacobus Haupt (before 1560, As) was followed by settings by Scandello (after 1568); Schütz (1623); Johann Müller, a member of the Dresden Kapelle (1676); J.W. Furchheim (1677), and N.A. Strungk (1690); the last three works are no longer extant. Similarly, Michael’s Christmas historia of 1602 was followed by other versions by Schütz (1660, printed in 1664) and Peranda (1668, now lost). Under Walter’s successors Matthaeus Le Maistre, Scandello and G.B. Pinello di Ghirardi, the practice of performing vocal–instrumental works became increasingly important. The sacred works of these three Kapellmeister, as well as those by Michael, reveal a late Netherlandish and Italian polyphonic technique.
When the Kantorei was founded in 1548 it comprised 19 singers and an organist. Five Italian instrumentalists, Scandello among them, joined the ensemble in 1549. In 1554 it consisted of 25 singers and seven ‘welsch’ (Netherlandish) musicians, and in 1606 there were 47 singers and instrumentalists. The number had fallen to 27 by 1608, and in 1611 the Kapelle was reduced to a minimum (a frequent occurrence when a new ruler succeeded). In 1612 a protracted process of reconstruction began, concluding in 1615 with the appointment of Schütz. According to an inventory, in 1593 the Kapelle had a large number of all the instruments commonly used in art music at the time, including 13 trumpets, 12 viols, 11 cornetts, eight crumhorns, eight dulcians and five one-hand flutes (with three finger-holes). After the death in 1612 of Hassler, who had been court organist at Dresden since 1608, Michael Praetorius directed the Dresden Hofkapelle as de facto Kapellmeister in 1613 and 1614 to about 1616. Hassler, Praetorius and Schütz were all appointed to posts at the court of Dresden thanks to the negotiating skills of privy councillor Christoph vom Loss the Younger. The enormous output of Praetorius undoubtedly formed the basis of court church music during the early 17th century. His late works, for instance parts two and three of the Syntagma musicum (1619 and 1621), clearly reflect the composer’s Dresden experiences. From the autumn of 1615 Schütz acted first as ‘organist and director of the musicians’; he gained the actual title of Kapellmeister only later, and remained officially subordinate to Praetorius until the latter’s death in 1621. Up to 1631 Schütz was extremely successful in his post; the quantity and quality of his works, together with the high standards of the singers and instrumentalists in the Kapelle, made Dresden the leading musical centre of northern and central Germany. As the Thirty Years War reached Saxony in 1631, the Kapelle of Elector Johann Georg I (ruled 1611–56) was adversely affected. A gradual recovery began only after 1654. The late works of Schütz (from the Christmas historia of 1660 to the Schwanengesang of 1671) were composed for the court of Dresden, but they must have seemed old-fashioned to the Kapelle now that styles were changing (fig.4). In 1666, when the court was in its prime under Johann Georg II (ruled 1656–80), the Kapelle had 53 musicians. After 1548 Italian and Dutch musicians joined the ensemble, and from 1560 to about 1630 there were also several English members, including John Price. Around the middle of the 17th century the Italians gained more influence, and after 1657 they came to dominate the Kapelle. The violinist Carlo Farina was in Dresden from 1625 to about 1628, and published five large collections of instrumental music there. In 1656 Johann Georg II merged the Kapelle he had maintained since 1639 with the existing electoral Kapelle. Now that Schütz was living mainly in Weissenfels, the tone of the Dresden court Kapelle was set until about 1680 by G.A. Bontempi (the first castrato in Dresden, and a composer, theatrical technician and historian), V. Albrici and Peranda, whose works marked the beginnings of the musical Baroque in central Germany. All three were of the school of Carissimi in Rome, and they introduced to Germany the new genre of the concerto–aria cantata. In 1666, under the direction of C.C. Dedekind as Konzertmeister, a ‘Kleine deutsche Music’ ensemble was formed to sing at church services. Dedekind joined the Kapelle as a bass singer in 1654; his most important composition, Aelbianische Musen-Lust of 1657, has a significant counterpart in the Dresden Kirchen- und Hausbuch of 1694, based on the 1676 Hofgesangbuch edited by Bernhard; Dedekind’s name is not mentioned as editor of this later version, but it contains many new texts and melodies for songs by him, particularly in the appendix entitled ‘Anhang 100 ahnmutig und sonderbahr geistlicher Arien’, where the texts show traces of the Pietistic influence of the principal Dresden court preacher, P.J. Spener. According to recent research, Dedekind was the true creator of the madrigalian church cantata, preceding Erdmann Neumeister. Texts for cantatas with recitatives, arias and chorus appear in the ‘theatrical and poetic appendix’ to his Neue geistliche Schauspiele bekwemet zur Musik (1670).
Members of the Dresden Kapelle who were important both as composers and as performing musicians included not only Farina and Dedekind, but J.J. Walther (a member of the Kapelle from 1673 to 1680), J.P. von Westhoff (1674–97) and Strungk (1688–97). Farina, Walther, Westhoff and Strungk constituted in effect a Dresden violin school that did much to develop virtuoso violin technique. Court organists who were also composers included August Nörmiger (1581–1613), whose Tabulaturbuch auff dem Instrumente dates from 1598, and Hassler, who in 1612 drew up the specification for a large new organ in the Schlosskapelle, replacing the organ of 1563. The new instrument, its design somewhat modified, was built by Gottfried Frische in 1613, and alterations were made to it under Schütz in 1628. Like J.H. Schein, Anton Colander (1590–1621), a cousin and pupil of Schütz and court organist from about 1616 to 1621, was among the first composers of ‘Kleine geistliche Konzerte’ to German texts of the type written by Viadana. They appeared posthumously in Dresden in 1643 in the Varii variorum … concertus. Two later court organists, Matthias Weckmann (in Dresden in 1641 and from 1647 to 1654) and Adam Krieger (1657–66), were also significant composers. In the final decades of the 17th century the post of Kapellmeister at the Dresden court was held successively by Peranda (1672–5), important for his many sacred concertos and his cantatas, historiae and operas; Sebastiano Cherici (1675); Vincenzo Albrici (1676–80), a prolific composer of Latin motets; Bernhard (1681–92), equally prominent as a composer and a writer of works on music theory; and Strungk (1692–7), who made his name principally in Leipzig as an operatic Kapellmeister and composer.
From 1548 the growth of music at court was confined to church services and banquets. However, from the 1570s onwards, an increasing number of court festivities called for all the available forces. During the 17th century the various separate events of a festival and the individual scenes (inventiones) of a ceremonial procession were grouped together on such occasions as princely baptisms, weddings, visits and birthdays, so that a Dresden court festival became a cyclical Gesamtkunstwerk involving sporting events, theatrical entertainments, hunting, fireworks, dance and ballet. Plays, often with musical interludes, were performed at court by touring companies including the ‘English troop’ of John Green, which visited Dresden and Torgau in 1626 and 1627. Works written in Dresden for the musical theatre in the 17th century tended to be hybrid forms such as plays with singing, sung ballet (based on the text of a play), comoedia, tragoedia and tragicomoedia, with or without songs. Schütz’s Dafne of 1627, his sung ballet Orpheó und Euridice (1638), the anonymous ballet Paris und Helena (1650) and many other works were of this hybrid nature. Post-Monteverdi Venetian opera made its first appearance with Bontempi’s Il Paride of 1662, and made its real breakthrough in Dresden with the 1667 production of P.A. Ziani’s Il Teseo that opened the new Comödienhaus designed by Wolf Kaspar von Klengel. The great hall in the palace continued to be used for court festivities and ballets. In the mid-1680s Elector Johann Georg III engaged an ensemble of Italian singers for the Comödienhaus; these included Margherita Salicola of Mantua, Dresden’s first prima donna, who scored a personal triumph in Carlo Pallavicino’s La Gierusalemme liberata in 1687. Earlier productions included Bontempi and Peranda’s Dafne (1671) and Jupiter und Io (1673, music now lost). In 1678 the ballet Von der Zusammenkunfft und Würckung derer 7 Planeten was performed on the occasion of the ‘meeting of the Serene Highnesses’ Johann Georg II and his three brothers, Augustus of Saxony-Weissenfels, Christian of Saxony-Merseburg and Moritz of Saxony-Zeitz (fig.5). This ballet, although attributed in 1931 to Bernhard, was in fact by one of the French dancing-masters at the Dresden court, perhaps François de la Marche, who was appointed to a post including duties as a composer in 1673. None of the music from other Dresden stage works of the period has been preserved.
(ii) Church and municipal music.
The most glittering period in the history of music in Dresden began in 1694 with the accession of Elector Friedrich August I of Saxony (1670–1733), a member of the Wettin dynasty who converted to the Catholic faith in 1697 in order to acquire the Polish crown. As King August II (known as ‘der Starke’) of Poland, he became ruler of two domains, a situation that was to end abruptly in 1763 with Saxony’s defeat in the Seven Years War and the deaths of his successors, the electors Friedrich August II (1696–1763, King August III of Poland) and Friedrich Christian (1722–63). However, during a period of some 70 years architecture, art and music were cultivated at the court of Dresden with a unique magnificence that cannot be accounted for solely by an absolute monarch’s need for display. The phenomenon must also be seen as an expression of the personal artistic inclinations and interests of the princes, their wives and other members of their families.
Soon after converting to Catholicism, Friedrich August I dissolved the Hofkapelle and reorganized it into the Evangelische Hofkirchenmusik (which received relatively little royal support) and the main ensemble, the Churfürstlich Sächsische Capell- und Cammer-Musique, one of whose tasks was to participate in Catholic court services. The records of the Dresden Hofkapelle show that the Capell- und Cammer-Musique grew steadily, and around 1710 already had an orchestra equipped with the most up-to-date instruments of the time. The instrumentalists were highly qualified musicians who for the most part – in contrast to the usual practice of other Hofkapellen – specialized in a single instrument, so that the quality of performance was exceptionally high. Among the standard instruments available in the Kapelle were the ‘modern’ string instruments – violin, viola, cello and double bass – wind instruments including the transverse flute, oboe, bassoon and horn, and continuo instruments including lutes, pantaleon (an instrument resembling a dulcimer), harpsichord and organ (fig.6). The continuo players, who included such masters as L.S. Weiss and Pantaleon Hebestreit, were usually also chamber or church composers and responsible for providing the musical repertory. The court trumpeters and drummers formed an ensemble of their own, the highest-ranking of its kind in the Holy Roman Empire, but also played in the Hofkapelle when required. The standard instruments were on occasion supplemented by the recorder, chalumeau, oboe d’amore, viol and viola d’amore.
The instrumental Kapelle was an international ensemble. Many wind players, for instance, were of the French school, while the Flemish-born J.B. Volumier (Woulmyer), who was leader of the orchestra from 1709, was also trained in France and brought his young orchestra to a remarkable level of technical accuracy, especially after the introduction of uniform bowing. The violin virtuoso J.G. Pisendel, who had been trained in the Italian style by Torelli in Ansbach, joined the Kapelle in 1712 and succeeded Volumier as leader in 1728, a post he held until his death in 1755. He had studied with Vivaldi in Venice in 1716–17, while accompanying the crown prince on his Grand Tour, an encounter that was to have a profound effect on the musical landscape of central and northern Germany in the following decades. Pisendel made Dresden and its Hofkapelle the major centre outside Italy for promoting the works, and above all the concertos, of the famous Venetian composer. The cultivation of Vivaldi’s music in Dresden had a crucial influence on many native composers, including Bach, Fasch, Pisendel himself, Quantz and the Graun and Benda brothers.
During his stay in Venice in 1716–17 the crown prince, himself an ardent admirer of Italian music, engaged a number of famous instrumentalists and singers to form an Italian opera company in Dresden – a decision finally ratified by his father, although the elector’s taste inclined much more towards French drama and music. Because of hostility from Volumier and the old Kapellmeister, J.C. Schmidt, it was not easy to integrate the Kapelle ensemble with the musicians engaged in Italy to perform in Dresden from September 1717. The newly recruited company, assembled by the composer Antonio Lotti (engaged up until 1719), included famous women singers such as the sopranos S.S. Lotti, M.C. Zani, known as Marucini, and Livia Constantini, known as La Polacchina, and the contralto Lucia Gaggi, known as Bavarini; and male singers including the castratos Francesco Bernardi, known as Senesino, Cajetano Berenstadt and Matteo Berselli; and the tenor Francesco Guicciardi; and the basses Lucrezio Borsari and G.M. Boschi, as well as the violin virtuoso F.M. Veracini and several violone players. The only German musician among them was J.D. Heinichen (1683–1729), who was also the only one of the musicians recruited in Italy to stay in Dresden for the rest of his life. Heinichen had originally been appointed as Lotti’s deputy Kapellmeister with the opera, but his duties soon included the provision of serenatas and cantatas for court festivities. However, although he remained a Protestant, his principal task was to supervise and direct the Catholic Hofkirchenmusik (fig.7), to which he devoted himself as energetically as his poor health allowed. Outstanding among the many non-German musicians was the Bohemian J.D. Zelenka (1679–1745), who significantly enriched the repertories of the Dresden Kapelle and the court church. He was appointed to the Kapelle as a double bass player in about 1711, and after a few years spent studying composition (with Fux in Vienna, among others) he began writing sacred music of great originality. During the 1720s Zelenka had frequent opportunities to deputize for the ailing Heinichen in composing for the court church. However, neither the elector nor the crown prince cared particularly for his sacred compositions; and as a result Zelenka, an introverted and devout Catholic, never rose to the position of Kapellmeister, although he was acting Kapellmeister from Heinichen’s death in 1729 until 1734. The title of Kirchen-Compositeur bestowed on him in 1735, without any rise in his salary, did nothing to mitigate his disappointment.
Other ensembles at the Saxon court included the court and hunt fifers, who were required to play for dramatic productions at mealtimes and at balls, and the so-called Kleine oder Pohlnische Cammer-Musique, who also performed music for King August II when he was in Poland and for the performances of the Comici Italiani, an Italian operatic company independent of the court opera. King August III, however, dismissed this ‘troupe of travelling musicians’ when he came to the throne, and in 1733 re-founded the royal Kapelle in Warsaw, which had been dissolved by his father.
Among the most famous instrumentalists in the Dresden Kapelle during the period 1694 to 1763 were F.M. Cattaneo and J.G. Lehneiss (violin); Johann Adam (viola); J.P. de Tilloy and A.A. de Rossi (cello); C.F. Abel (viol); Girolamo Personè (double bass); the flautists Buffardin, Quantz and F.J. Götzel; the oboists François le Riche, J.C. Richter and Antonio Besozzi; and the horn players J.A. Fischer, F.A. Samm, the Schindler brothers and A.J. Hampel. Outstanding singers, in addition to those mentioned above, included the sopranos Margherita Durastani, Vittoria Tesi, Faustina Bordini (Hasse’s wife), Regina Mingotti, and Teresa Albuzzi-Todeschini; the castratos Andrea Ruota, Nicola Pozzi, Giovanni Bindi, A.M. Monticelli and Felice Salimbeni; and the tenors and basses J.J. Götzel, Angelo Amorevoli and Joseph Schuster.
Until 1763 the large Hofkapelle comprised not only instrumental players but also the singers of the Italian opera and the Catholic Hofkirche (with the exception of the pupils in the boys’ school of the Kapelle, founded in 1708). In effect, the Hofkapelle was divided into its three distinct components after 1717. The Italian opera, while involved in court festivities in the autumn and during the carnival season, attracted the most public attention, since anyone ‘suitably dressed’ could have free entry to its performances. At first the great majority of the Protestant population showed little interest in the music of the Hofkirche. However, it grew in reputation in the second half of the century, after the dedication of Chiaveri’s new church in 1751, and eventually became a notable musical attraction in the city. The third element of the Hofkapelle, the court chamber or ‘concert’ music, comprising music for instrumental ensembles of various sizes and vocal music ranging from solo cantatas to serenatas for large numbers of singers, was exclusively for court society, and it was a great honour for foreign visitors to be allowed to listen to performances from a neighbouring room. The scale of its musical activity ensured the Hofkapelle a dominant position in the musical life of Dresden in the 18th century, and it is not surprising that it tended to eclipse other musical activities in the city.
The cosmopolitan nature of the Kapelle was a determining factor in Dresden’s becoming a centre of what Quantz described as the ‘mixed or German style’. This was not merely a synthesis of the Italian, French and German styles, but also included galant and folk elements, the latter derived from the popular comic intermezzos performed by French and Italian comedians, and the traditional music of Poland and Bohemia cultivated by musicians from those countries who were active at the Saxon court.
Handel and Telemann both visited Dresden in September 1719 for the festivities to celebrate the wedding of Crown Prince Friedrich August to Maria Josepha, eldest daughter of Joseph I of Austria (fig.8). The climax of the festivities was the production of three operas by Lotti, Giove in Argo, Ascanio and Teofane. These were given in the newly opened opera house on the Zwinger designed by Pöppelmann, which with a capacity of 2000 was one of the largest in Europe (fig.9). The predominantly Venetian operatic ensemble engaged by the crown prince scored a triumph in these performances. However, soon after the festivities the Italian opera company broke up. Its best singers were recruited by Handel for his London company, and Lotti returned to Venice in accordance with the terms of his contract. In 1726, however, the opera opened again with a new company of younger singers. Hasse and his wife Faustina Bordoni were brought from Venice in 1731. He achieved a great success with his opera Cleofide, which had its première on 13 September, but returned with Faustina to Italy shortly afterwards. However, in 1734, after the accession of Friedrich August II, Hasse and his wife were engaged at the Dresden court as Hofkapellmeister and prima donna. Two years later Bach was granted the title of court composer for which he had petitioned in 1733, presenting to the elector the Kyrie and Gloria of what was to become the B minor Mass.
Hasse had immense influence both as composer and Kapellmeister, and was notably adept at gauging and, in turn, forming the musical tastes of his court audiences. The productions of his opere serie increasingly became sophisticated syntheses of the arts, equally remarkable for the quality of singing and orchestral playing and for the lavish scenery created by such leading stage designers as Andrea Zucchi, Giuseppe Galli-Bibiena and G.N. Servandoni. The elector’s birthday on 7 October was always celebrated by the première of a new opera by Hasse in the wooden theatre (destroyed in 1763) at the castle of Hubertsburg, near Wermsdorf.
After 1751, when Chiaveri’s new Hofkirche was consecrated, church music increasingly came to rival opera in importance. Hasse composed his Mass in D minor, Te Deum and Regina coeli especially for the Hofkirche, and before leaving Dresden after the Seven Years War composed his Requiem for August III and Crown Prince Friedrich Christian. After 1764, when Hasse was discharged and moved to Vienna and later to Venice, he still retained the title of Oberkapellmeister of the Electorate of Saxony and maintained contact with Dresden; his last three masses (1779, 1780 and 1783) were all written for the city.
Saxony’s defeat in the Seven Years War in 1763, and the deaths soon afterwards of two of its electors, brought to an end the political and economic dominance of the electorate. Dresden’s brilliant Augustan Age was over, and the government’s preoccupation with economic recovery and the rebuilding of the capital after the Prussian bombardment inevitably restricted interest in the arts for the next few years.
Throughout the Augustan Age, only the music of the city’s three main Lutheran churches provided any counterweight to the dominance of music at court. The pupils of the Kreuzschule provided the sacred vocal music in the new Frauenkirche building designed by George Bähr, begun in 1726 and consecrated in 1734 (it was destroyed in 1945; work began on a new building in 1992). Since 1672 the Kreuzschule pupils performed figural music in the older building, the dilapidated medieval church dedicated to the Virgin, founded some time after 1142 and eventually demolished. (The old Frauenkirche had also been a favourite burial site; Schütz was laid to rest there in 1672.) The Kantor of the Kreuzkirche, T.C. Reinhold (1682–1755), who held office from 1720 until his death, composed festive cantatas (now lost) for the laying of the foundation stone in 1726, the consecration of the church in 1734, and the dedication of the great organ designed by Gottfried Silbermann and built in the years 1732 to 1736. On 1 December 1736 Bach gave a two-hour concert before representatives of the court and ‘a great many other personages and artists, upon the new [Silbermann] organ’ (Bach-Dokumente, II, no.389).
The Kreuzschule pupils performed mainly in the Kreuzkirche, formerly the Nikolaikirche but renamed in 1388 in honour of its relic, a splinter from the Cross of Christ. The school attached to the church maintained several choirs whose members, particularly the pauperes, earned money for their keep and education by singing for alms in the streets.
The choirs had performed polyphonic music even before the Reformation. During the first two thirds of the 18th century they performed both the older repertory (J.Z. Grundig, Kantor of the Kreuzkirche from 1713 to 1720, left manuscript versions of Schütz’s three Passions and Peranda’s Markuspassion) and cantatas and motets by T.C. Reinhold, Kantor of the Kreuzkirche, and his successor in that post, G.A. Homilius (1714–85). While none of Reinhold’s musical works has survived, Homilius wrote a wealth of impressive cantatas and motets which he regularly performed from 1755 onwards with the Kreuzchor and the Dresden municipal musicians. After the Kreuzkirche and its organ (built by Tobias Weller, 1642–4) were destroyed by fire in 1760, the Frauenkirche became the temporary home of the Kreuzchor and its Kantor, Homilius, until the construction of the new Kreuzkirche.
The Sophienkirche (destroyed in 1945 and later demolished), a Gothic building with a double nave dating from 1351, was used for civic services after 1599, and after the closing of the Lutheran castle chapel in 1737 it also became the Lutheran court church. The Sophienkirche’s own organists were employed by the city as early as 1695; among the most important organists here in the 18th century were Christian Pezold (1677–1733, also chamber organist and harpsichordist of the Hofkapelle) and his immediate successor W.F. Bach, who held the post until 1747 and was employed by the city alone. In 1720 the Gothic church acquired a fine organ built by G. Silbermann.
Other musicians working in Dresden in the late 17th and the 18th centuries included the instrumentalists of the Stadtmusik, several military bands and a large number of freelance musicians. From 1679 to 1698 Daniel Weber, who described himself as a master musician able to play all the wind and string instruments, was Stadtmusicus, i.e. leader and teacher of the Stadtpfeifer journeymen. Until about 1740 this post was still linked to that of Türmer, watchman of the Kreuzkirche tower. Weber was succeeded (until 1735) by Gottfried Heyne, who had studied in the imperial Kapelle in Vienna. Under the Stadtmusicus J.P. Weiss, active from 1735 to 1751, there was particularly close cooperation between the instrumentalists of the Stadtmusik and the Kreuzchor, whose Kantor Reinhold was appointed director musices. Weiss was succeeded as Stadtmusicus by G.H. Schnaucke, who was in turn succeeded in 1766 by J.F. Lange, the first in a line of retired military bandsmen who were to hold the post of Dresden Stadtmusicus in the future.
Theatrical and operatic companies were welcomed in Dresden, supplementing performances by the court opera, although their activities were always dependent on permission from court. The Mingotti brothers’ famous opera company was particularly popular, and performed in Dresden in 1747–8 in its own wooden theatre on the Zwinger. The first opera buffa seen in Dresden, Galuppi’s Il mondo alla roversa, was given in 1754 by G.B. Locatelli in the theatre on the Brühlsche Terrasse. Locatelli had a great success with this production, and returned in 1755–6 with further opere buffe by Galuppi and Domenico Fischietti. In 1755 Pietro Moretti built a small new theatre on the Zwinger, the Komödienhaus, where he staged plays and comic operas; he later held concerts there, and performed Italian intermezzos in 1762–3.
Little is known about musical life in the noblemen’s houses and embassies of Dresden during the Augustan Age, since few archival records survive. Some great houses maintained their own private Kapelle, of which the most famous was the ensemble maintained by the prime minister Brühl from 1735 to 1763.
The Seven Years War cost Saxony several hundred million Taler. Much of Dresden was destroyed by the Prussian bombardment of 1760; the former princes’ palace was burnt down, with the loss of the court musical archives, including many works by Schütz. After 1763 an urgently needed programme of economic reform was implemented and expenditure on cultural life drastically reduced. The enforced economies inevitably affected Dresden’s musical institutions. The large opera house on the Zwinger was closed (its last production was J.G. Naumann’s La clemenza di Tito produced for the marriage of Elector Friedrich August III in 1769). Hasse, Faustina Bordoni and the Italian opera company were dismissed without pensions. The small Komödienhaus on the Zwinger, which had been rebuilt in 1761, was made available from 1763 to theatre companies subsidized by the court, and was a home to a newly constituted Italian opera company under the direction of Giuseppe Bustelli (1765–78), Antonio Bertoldi (1780–87) and Andrea Bertoldi (1787–1813). The theatre was also used for German and French plays. Friedrich August III’s formal accession to power after he came of age in 1768 had a beneficial effect on musical life, partly because the elector himself was a distinguished connoisseur of music and an excellent keyboard player capable of playing from a full score. Under Friedrich August III the court orchestra, which as before fulfilled a threefold function in opera, church and chamber music, gradually revived. Successful Kapellmeister who worked with the orchestra during this period included J.G. Schürer, Domenico Fischietti, J.G. Naumann, Joseph Schuster, Franz Seydelmann, Ferdinando Paer and Francesco Morlacchi, while notable instrumentalists included the violinists J.B.G. Neruda, Franz Hunt and Cristoforo Babbi (Konzertmeister from 1781), the viola player Joseph Schubert, the cellists J.B. Tricklir and Friedrich Dotzauer, the double bass players J.C. Horn and F.A. Schubert, the flautist J.F. Printz and the oboist Carlo Besozzi. Naumann was the outstanding figure of the period; under his direction (1776–1801) the Kapelle regained its former reputation, while his numerous sacred compositions significantly enriched the repertory of church music at the Dresden court. Chamber music also began to flourish again under Schuster’s direction. Unlike church music, which drew mainly on works by local composers, instrumental music became increasingly orientated towards Vienna. From the 1780s the repertory of the Kapelle included many of Haydn and Mozart’s latest instrumental works (Mozart played his so-called Coronation Concerto, k537, at the Dresden court in 1789), as well as symphonies, concertos and chamber music by C.P.E. Bach, Clementi and others.
Many notable Italian singers sang at the court opera during this period, including Angiola Calori, Maddalena Allegranti, Domenico Guardasoni, Filippo Sassaroli, Francesco Ceccarelli, A.P. Benetti, Charlotte Haeser and Luigia Sandrini-Caravoglia. From the 1760s the emphasis shifted towards opera buffa and large-scale intermezzos, while at the end of the 18th century, following the general trend, opera semiseria became popular. Composers performed by the court opera included Anfossi, Galuppi, Cimarosa, Paisiello, Piccinni, Salieri and Paer (Kapellmeister from 1801 to 1807). Così fan tutte was given at the court theatre in 1791, but Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro did not enter the repertory until 1813 and 1815 respectively.
From the 1770s the Dresden bourgeoisie developed an increasing interest in theatre- and concert-going. The production of Schuster’s Singspiel Der Alchymist oder der Liebesteufel (to a libretto by A.G. Meissner) in March 1778 by a German troupe under Pasquale Bondini led to his forming a permanent Singspiel company in Dresden. Other theatre companies of the period, all of them enjoying financial support from the court, included those of J.G. Wäser (1770–72), C.T. Doebbelin (1774–5), A. Seyler (1775–7) and Franz Seconda (1793–1814). Singspiele by Hiller, Georg Benda, Schweitzer and others were performed in the Kleines Kurfürstliches Theater and in the Theater auf dem Linckeschen Bade. Richard Engländer’s research indicates the encouragement that Seyler’s company gave to German opera in the eyes not only of the public but of local composers. Schuster and Seydelmann both composed Singspiele and Naumann adapted several of his own works into German. From 1790 to 1817 the Gesellschaft der Deutscher Schauspieler of Joseph Seconda (brother of Franz) staged various operas in German for the Dresden public, including several by Mozart (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, 1791; Die Zauberflöte, 1793; Le nozze di Figaro, 1795; Don Giovanni, 1795; La clemenza di Tito, 1796), Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, Beethoven’s Fidelio and Weber’s Abu Hassan and Silvana. From 1813 to 1814 E.T.A. Hoffmann conducted the orchestra of Seconda’s company.
Various concert activities were initiated in Dresden in the 1770s, including Schönberg’s Donnerstags-Concerte about 1775, the Bassemann subscription concerts under Naumann’s direction in 1779, and the Grosse Konzerte, which took place in the Hôtel de Pologne under Schuster’s direction. Music was also privately encouraged in the homes of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy, and Naumann, Schuster, Seydelmann and other local composers wrote many accompanied songs for domestic performance. Numerous piano teachers worked in Dresden, of whom the most significant was Christoph Transchel, a pupil of J.S. Bach. The closing years of the 18th century also saw the beginnings of music publishing in the city. A Singekreis met at the home of a city councillor, C.G. Körner, from 1805, and two years later the court organist Anton Dreyssig founded a Singakademie (see §4).
Music flourished at the three main Protestant churches in the city, the Frauenkirche, Kreuzkirche and Sophienkirche. The choir of the Kreuzkirche, in particular, was renowned for its high standards; from 1755 its director was G.A. Homilius, several of whose sacred works remained popular into the 19th and 20th centuries. Homilius was succeeded by C.E. Weinlig (1785–1813) and his nephew, C.T. Weinlig (1814–17). The choir of the Kreuzkirche also sang at the opera, and took part in the first Dresden performance of Haydn’s The Creation on 2 May 1800.
At the turn of the 19th century there was a late flowering of Italian opera in Dresden, with the court Kapellmeister Ferdinando Paer (1802–6) and Francesco Morlacchi (1810–41) as its most prominent exponents. Italian opera was performed in the Kleines Hoftheater or Morettisches Theater, which ceased to be an independent institution in 1832. German Singspiel and French opéra comique (sung in German translation) were performed in the Theatre auf dem Linckeschen Bade. This theatre was taken over by the Hoftheater in 1816 and remained in use until 1858.
When the management of the Köngliche Kapelle and the Hoftheater decided to found a German opera company, Weber was appointed music director of the new ‘Deutsches Department’. He took up the post in January 1817 and was promoted to Hofkapellmeister in September of that year. In 1817 the German opera had 16 solo singers and a chorus of 34. Morlacchi was Weber’s colleague as Kapellmeister of the Italian opera, which numbered 13 solo singers in 1817. In the same year the Königliche Kapelle consisted of 63 musicians with permanent posts and some 15 trainees. In 1826 Morlacchi set up a benevolent fund for the widows and orphans of musicians, the money to be provided by concerts. The first was a performance of Haydn’s The Creation on 29 December 1826, and from 1827 these concerts were regularly held on the Sunday before Easter.
Weber composed Der Freischütz, Euryanthe and most of Oberon in Dresden. His early death in 1826 was a severe setback to the further development of the German opera. In 1824 Heinrich Marschner was engaged as music director of the German opera, but tension between him and Weber caused him to leave Dresden in 1826. After Weber’s death C.G. Reissiger was appointed music director of the Dresden Hofoper in November 1826, holding the post of second Kapellmeister from 1828 to 1851 and of principal Kapellmeister from 1851 to 1859. A highly accomplished musician, he staged works by Mozart, Weber and others, invited Berlioz to give concerts in Dresden, added Verdi’s Nabucco and Ernani to the repertory and on 20 October 1842 conducted the première of Wagner’s Rienzi. Reissiger was also prominent as a composer and produced several of his own operas, including Die Felsenmühle (1831).
The Dresden Hoftheater usually had two Kapellmeister and one music director who shared conducting duties and provided church music for services in the Catholic Hofkirche. The Königliches Sächsisches Hoftheater, designed by Gottfried Semper and sometimes known as the Semper Opernhaus, was opened on 12 April 1841 (fig.10). In 1842 the orchestra consisted of 56 permanent members and 17 trainees, and included some famous virtuosos, among them the principal Konzertmeister K.J. Lipiński. Among the 20-strong ensemble of solo singers were Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, Henriette Wüst, Joseph Tichatschek and Anton Mitterwurzer. The chorus numbered 43 singers, and there were 17 dancers.
Wagner was second Hofkapellmeister in Dresden from 1843 to 1849. After the successful première of Rienzi (fig.11), two further Wagner operas received their premières in Dresden: Der fliegende Holländer on 2 January 1843, and Tannhäuser on 19 October 1845. On 28 April 1848, while he was still in Dresden, Wagner completed the score of Lohengrin. However, his active participation in the Dresden May Rising of 1849 forced him to flee the city. After Wagner’s departure Dresden continued to be one of the leading German operatic centres. The repertory of the Hoftheater consisted of 35 to 40 operas a year, with as many as 15 new productions each season. Wagner was succeeded as Hofkapellmeister by K.A. Krebs (1850–72).
In 1850 Reissiger founded the ‘Aschermittwochs-Konzerte’ and from 1858 organized subscription concerts given by the Hofkapelle. In addition, the Musicalische Academien of the Hofkapelle were held in the rooms of the Hôtel de Pologne and the Hôtel de Saxe. These concerts featured many of the most celebrated singers and instrumental virtuosos of the period. Among composers engaged to conduct their own works in Dresden were Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Liszt. During the winter season of 1845–6 in the Hôtel de Saxe a series of six subscription concerts was given on the initiative of Ferdinand Hiller and Schumann, who lived in Dresden from 1844 to 1850. Joachim and Clara Schumann were among the soloists, and on 4 December 1845 Clara gave the première of her husband’s Piano Concerto in A Minor at a concert conducted by Hiller.
On 24 May 1854 musicians of the Hofkapelle formed the Dresden Tonkünstlerverein. The prime purpose of this society was to play contemporary chamber music. Regular quartet societies made up by members of the orchestra were formed as early as 1811, so that chamber music must have been publicly performed since that time. The deputy Kapellmeister Franz Schubert was first violin in a string quartet from 1836, and Lipiński founded another quartet. From 1846 to 1850 Schumann organized matinée performances of chamber music in the Coselsche Palais, the Hôtel de Saxe and at other locations.
In 1856 the Dresden Conservatory was founded on the initiative of the chamber musician Friedrich Tröstler. It soon began to prosper, with such teachers of composition as Felix Draeske (from 1884).
Summer open-air concerts were a particular feature of musical life in Dresden at this time. They were given in the Grosser Garten, the theatre on the Linckescher Bad and on the Brühlsche Terrasse by military and civil bands and the Stadtmusikkorps.
Catholic sacred music was performed in the Catholic Hofkirche. Until the 1870s it was characterized by the performance of masses with orchestral accompaniment; but with the appointment of Franz Wüllner in 1877 greater prominence was given to a cappella music. The singers were exclusively male until 1864, when women were admitted as soloists.
The three main Protestant churches of Dresden, the Kreuzkirche, the Frauenkirche and the Sophienkirche, always had excellent church musicians. The Kantor of the Kreuzkirche was also director musices, and in that post supervised the sacred music of all three churches. In addition, he directed the choir of the Kreuzschule, which provided choral music at the Kreuzkirche, and on certain Sundays and church festivals also performed sacred music at the Frauenkirche and the municipal Sophienkirche. Until 1886 the choir of the Kreuzschule had 32 pupils and 22 ‘Kurrendaner’ (members of a youth choir who sang in the streets for alms). The whole choir performed at the principal services in the Dresden Kreuzkirche; the pupils alone sang at the other services. Julius Otto, Kantor of the Kreuzkirche from 1828 to 1875, composed both sacred and secular music. Under Kantor Oskar Wermann (1875–1906), the choir of the Kreuzschule was reinforced in 1886 by 12 further ‘Kurrendaner’. Wermann gave particular prominence to the works of J.S. Bach and to a cappella music from Palestrina to Brahms. He himself composed some 150 works. His successor Otto Richter (1906–30) founded the mixed-voice Dresden Bachverein in 1911.
Several outstanding organists played the Silbermann organ in the Frauenkirche. The church’s excellent acoustics and imposing size made it a frequent venue for concerts of sacred music, benefit concerts and memorial concerts. The Sophienkirche was both the Protestant court church and a municipal parish church. In its capacity as the Protestant court church, figural music was performed there by the Hofchor until 1828. From 1828 to 1874 this choir consisted of six choirboys and four trainees, as well as four tenors and basses who were studying at the Friedrichstadt teachers’ seminary. From 1874 to 1882 the male choristers were temporarily replaced by eight members of the court opera chorus. In 1883 Wüllner recommended an increase in the number of choirboys and male choristers, and from 1895 the Protestant Kapellknabeninstitut had 48 choirboys, with an additional 12 trainees, while the number of seminary students in the men’s choir rose to 36. The Kapellknaben institut continued in existence until 1923.
Dresden played a prominent role in the 19th-century German male-voice choir movement. Reissiger, Schumann and Julius Otto, among others, wrote many works for male chorus. In 1850 there were some 50 male-voice choirs in Dresden, the best known being the Orpheus, founded in 1834, and the Dresden Liedertafel, founded in 1839. The first major German male-voice choral festivals were held in Dresden in 1842 and 1843. Wagner, who was conductor of the Liedertafel from 1843 to 1845, conducted the première of his biblical scene Das Liebesmahl der Apostel in the Dresden Frauenkirche at the 1843 festival, with forces including 1200 singers from several Saxon male-voice choirs and 100 instrumentalists from the Dresden Hofkapelle. In July 1865 Dresden was also the location of the First German Sängerbundfest, in which 16,000 singers took part.
Following the example of the Berlin Sing-Akademie, the Dreyssigsche Singakademie was founded in Dresden on 5 March 1807 by Anton Dreyssig, organist at the Catholic Hofkirche. Sacred works and oratorios formed the nucleus of its repertory. The court organist J.G. Schneider, who directed the Dreyssigsche Singakademie from 1832 to 1857, was renowned for his performances of oratorio. He was also well known as organist of the Protestant court church, and shone as an organ virtuoso at the first World Exhibition in London in 1852. Another oustanding Dresden organist was G.A. Merkel (1827–85), a pupil of Schneider who held posts at the Kreuzkirche and the Catholic Hofkirche. He directed the Dreyssigsche Singakademie from 1867 to 1873 and composed many works for organ and piano. Schumann took over the musical direction of the Dresden Liedertafel from Hiller in 1847 and founded the Verein für Chorgesang the following year.
In 1860, the year after Reissiger’s death, Julius Rietz became director of the Hofoper and orchestra; he was appointed the city’s first Generalmusikdirektor in 1874. In 1872 Ernst von Schuch was appointed music director at the Dresden Hoftheater. He was promoted to Kapellmeister in 1873, and to principal Kapellmeister in 1879. As a consequence he had considerable influence on the shaping of the repertory and the choice of conductors. Franz Wüllner was appointed to Dresden in 1877 to succeed Rietz, but conflict soon developed between him and Schuch. Wüllner finally left the Dresden Hofoper in 1882 to concentrate on the music of the Catholic Hofkirche. On his departure Schuch reigned supreme. He was appointed Generalmusikdirektor in 1889 and built up an outstanding ensemble of soloists, restoring Dresden’s status as one of the leading operatic cities of the world.
When Semper’s famous round theatre was destroyed by fire in 1869, a wooden building served as a temporary stage for performances of opera and drama. It was used until Semper’s second theatre was opened on 2 February 1878. Under Schuch many Italian operas had their first Dresden productions in the new theatre, among them works by Verdi, Puccini, Leoncavallo and Mascagni. Schuch also gave all of Wagner’s 11 masterpieces, and sought to extend the repertory by staging the latest operas by Bungert and Draeseke, encouraging the production of operas by Slav composers, and conducting operas from earlier periods. In his concerts Schuch paid special attention not only to the Viennese Classical masters but also to his contemporaries Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Reger, Strauss and Skryabin. In 1900 he founded his famous Strauss ensemble (fig.12), and subsequently gave the premières of four Strauss operas: Feuersnot (1901), Salome (1905), Elektra (1909) and Der Rosenkavalier (1911). When Schuch died on 10 May 1914, a brilliant era in the history of music in Dresden came to a close.
In the first half of the 19th century the instrumentalists of the Stadtmusik were required to perform sacred music at the Kreuzkirche, Frauenkirche, Sophienkirche and Dreikönigskirche in turn, and from 1843 to 1861 these duties were extended to cover the Annenkirche and Matthäikirche as well. They played in oratorios and other performances by the choral societies of Dresden, and at outdoor concerts. Although the municipal ensemble, now known as the Stadtkapelle, had acquired an ideal hall in 1870 in the form of the newly opened Gewerbehaus, where they regularly gave symphony concerts, their director Erdmann Puffholdt resigned in 1872; the city council then abolished the post, and the Stadtkapelle ceased to exist as an institution. A successor, the Gewerbehaus Orchestra, was immediately formed, and eventually became the Dresden Philharmonic. Even in the 19th century the orchestra made tours of Russia, Poland, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and North America. Conductors included H.G. Mannsfeldt (1871–85), J.L. Nicodé (1885–8), Brahms, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, von Bülow, d’Albert, Mottl and Nikisch.
In 1923 the orchestra, then under J.G. Mraczek, became known as the Dresdner Philharmonie. In 1924 it changed its constitution, becoming a cooperative instead of a private organization. Its earliest conductors were Eduard Mörike (1924–9), Paul Scheinpflug (1929–32) and Werner Ladwig (1932–4); in 1934 the Dutch Paul van Kempen took over, turning the orchestra into one of the most famous in the world. He performed both the Classical and Romantic repertories but concentrated particularly on contemporary music, establishing festivals of modern music (1935–42) and founding the tradition of a ‘Dresden Musiksommer’, in which the Staatsoper (as the court opera was called after World War I), the Kreuzchor and the conservatory also took part. In 1928 Erich Schneider, then Kantor at the Frauenkirche, had performed serenade concerts in the Zwingerhof, conducting the orchestra of the Dresdner Mozart-Verein; the practice was revived by the Philharmonie in 1935. Kempen was forced to leave in 1942 by the Nazi authorities. Otto Matzerath, Bernardino Molinari and, finally, Carl Schuricht, the new principal conductor, conducted the Philharmonie’s concerts until the orchestra was disbanded following the declaration of total war in autumn 1944.
During and after World War I the Staatsoper had such eminent conductors as Hermann Kutzschbach (1898–1906, 1909–36), Kurt Striegler (1909–45, 1952–3) and Fritz Reiner (1914–21), who conducted the German première of Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten there in 1919. Fritz Busch became general musical director and director of the opera in 1922, remaining until driven from office by the Nazis in 1933. He further raised the orchestra’s standards and in both the opera house and the concert hall gave particular encouragement to contemporary composers including Pfitzner, Busoni (Doktor Faust, 1925), Hindemith (Cardillac, 1926), Weill (Der Protagonist, 1926) and Schoeck (Penthesilea, 1927). He continued the Strauss tradition with the premères of Intermezzo (1924) and Die ägyptische Helena (1928;fig.13), the latter conducted by the composer; and with the general administrator Alfred Reucker he built up an ensemble of fine young singers, including Elisabeth Rethberg, Marta Fuchs, Maria Cebotari, Erna Berger and Paul Schöffler. After a brief interregnum, which witnessed the première of Strauss’s Arabella (1933) under Clemens Krauss, Karl Böhm took over control of both the opera and the orchestra (1934–42). Strauss’s Die schweigsame Frau, which had its première in 1935, was taken off by the authorities after four performances, because the librettist Stefan Zweig was a Jew. Böhm also conducted the premières of Der Günstling by Wagner-Régeny (1935), Strauss’s Daphne (1938) and Sutermeister’s Romeo und Julia (1940). Böhm’s successor in 1943–4 was Karl Elmendorff, who conducted the première of Joseph Haas’s Die Hochzeit des Jobs (1944) with Matthieu Ahlersmeyer and Elfride Trötschel in the leading roles. Semper’s opera house, like all of the Dresden theatres, was destroyed by bombing in 1945.
The Tonkünstlerverein was presided over from 1914 to 1939 by Theo Bauer and then, until the 1944 ban, by Arthur Tröber, who was later the orchestra’s manager for many years (1955–69) and who continued the society’s traditions after the war with the Kammermusik der Staatskapelle Dresden in 1952. The leading chamber ensembles and soloists continue to shape this important aspect of Dresden’s musical life, together with the chamber recitals of the Philharmonie players, as they did during the early decades of the 20th century. Particular mention should be made of the Gustav Havemann Quartet (1921) and those of Max Strub (1936) and Jan Dahmen. More recent chamber ensembles include the Dresden Piano Trio, the Ulbrich Quartet and the Siering Quartet.
In order to train a new generation of players in the traditions of the Dresden Staatskapelle the Orchesterschule der Sächsischen Staatskapelle (before World War I the Königliche Kapelle) was founded in 1923; its artistic control was entrusted to Fritz Busch and later to Karl Böhm. An opera school and seminary for music training were later incorporated with the orchestral school and the two bodies were amalgamated in 1937 as the Konservatorium der Landeshauptstadt Dresden, also known as the Akademie für Musik und Theater. After the war (as early as June 1945) teaching began again in the Staatliche Akademie für Musik und Theater; its rector from 1946 to 1951 was the Prague composer Fidelio F. Finke, who lived in Dresden until his death in 1968. The institute received university status in 1952, during the rectorship of the musicologist Karl Laux (1951–63), and was renamed the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber. A department of musicology under Gerd Schönfelder was established in 1974. Since 1992 musicology has also been taught at the Technische Universität. The Sächsische Landeskirchenmusikschule was founded in Dresden in 1949 (now the Hochschule für Kirchenmusik). In 1995 several music colleges in the city merged to form the Heinrich Schütz Konservatorium.
The Dresden Philharmonie began giving concerts again on 8 June 1945, within a month of the end of the war. From 1947 to 1964 its artistic manager was Heinz Bongartz, who secured the orchestra’s financial future as a state institution in 1950 and who raised it to new heights of artistic excellence. He gave further emphasis to the cycles of concerts founded by Mörike in 1925 in order to educate audiences, and increased the amount of time spent on foreign tours, thereby adding to the orchestra’s international reputation. In 1961 the Philharmonie was appointed a founder-member of the Prague Dvořák Society and in 1966 its services on behalf of Mahler’s works were rewarded with a gold medal from the International Gustav Mahler Society of Vienna. Bongartz’s successors were H. Förster (1964–7) and Kurt Masur (1967–72); during Masur’s tenure the orchestra, considerably enlarged, moved to a new permanent home in Dresden’s imposing Palace of Culture (1969; fig.14). From 1972 to 1977 the orchestra’s principal conductor was Günther Herbig, whose successors have been Herbert Kegel, Jörg-Peter Weigle, Michel Plasson and, from 2001, Marek Janowski.
The Staatsoper and Staatskapelle also survived the city’s destruction in 1945 and continued for a time to perform in temporary halls until 1948, when the former Schauspielhaus was reopened as the Grosses Haus of the state theatre complex. From 1945 to 1950 both opera and orchestral concerts were conducted by Joseph Keilberth, supported by the producer Heinz Arnold and a fine ensemble which included Elfriede Trötschel, Christel Goltz, Joseph Herrmann, Kurt Böhme and Gottlob Frick. Keilberth, along with Arnold and several leading singers, left Dresden as a result of political pressure following the first East German performance of Orff’s Antigonae (1950). He was succeeded by Rudolf Kempe (1950–53) and Franz Konwitschny (1953–5). Notable Dresden premières in the immediate postwar period included Blacher’s Die Flut (1947) and Robert Obussier’s Amphytryon (1951). Rudolf Neuhaus began his long association with the Staatskapelle, first as its conductor and from 1955 as general musical director and assistant principal conductor. Since the 1950s the orchestra has maintained its outstanding reputation through guest appearances abroad and through its many recordings. Lovro von Matačič was principal conductor from 1956 to 1958, followed by Otmar Suitner (1960–64), Kurt Sanderling (1964–7) and Martin Turnovský (1967–8). The composer Siegfried Kurz was one of the conductors from 1961; he was appointed Generalmusikdirektor in 1971 and from 1975 to 1983 was executive musical director of the state theatres. In 1975 Herbert Blomstedt assumed control of both the opera and the orchestra; he was succeeded by Hans Vonk (1985–90). The widely acknowledged revival in the fortunes of the Staatsoper was due largely to Harry Kupfer, director of opera from 1972 to 1981, and to Horst Seeger, who was Intendant from 1973 to 1984. Leading members of the ensemble during the 1970s and 1980s included the Dresden-born singers Peter Schreier and Theo Adam.
In 1977 the foundation stone was laid for the rebuilding of Semper’s opera house, which opened in 1985 with a production of Der Freischütz directed by Joachim Herz, director of productions from 1985 to 1990. In 1991 Christoph Albrecht was appointed Intendant and the company renamed the Sächsische Staatsoper. Giuseppe Sinopoli became musical director of the Staatskapelle in 1992, broadening its repertory to include many contemporary works; he has also conducted several important productions at the Staatsoper. The activities of the Staatsoper are complemented by those of Staatsoperette, performing operettas and musicals, and the Landesbühnen Sachsen, a touring company based in nearby Radebeul.
Besides the choir of the Kreuzkirche, there are a number of large amateur choirs including the Philharmonischer Chor (which grew out of the Städtischer Chor), the Singakademie and the Mozart-Verein.
The Dresdner Musiktage was inaugurated in 1949 and continued into the 1960s as a summer festival. A Dixieland festival was established in 1970. More recent annual festivals include the Dresdner Musikfestspiele, founded in 1978, and the Tage der Zeitgenössischen Musik, set up in 1987 by the Dresden Centre for Contemporary Music under its founder, Udo Zimmermann.
FürstenauG
MGG2 (W. Steude and others)
MooserA
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T. Hiebert: The Horn in Early Eighteenth Century Dresden: the Players and their Repertory (diss., U. of Wisconsin, Madison, 1989)
O. Landmann: ‘The Dresden Hofkapelle during the Lifetime of Johann Sebastian Bach’, EMc, xvii (1989), 17–30
O. Landmann: ‘Italienische Opernpraxis in Dresden’, Il melodramma italiano in Italia e in Germania nell’età barocca: Como 1993, 21–30
M. Fechner: ‘Anmerkungen zur Dresdner Hofmusik im ersten Drittel des 18. Jahrhunderts’, August der Starke und seine Zeit: Königstein 1994 (Dresden, 1995)
H. John: ‘Kirchenmusik in der Dresdner Frauenkirche im 18. Jahrhundert’, Die Dresdner Frauenkirche: Jb zu ihrer Geschichte und zu ihrem archäologischen Wiederaufbau, ii (1996)
H. Mannstein [H.F. Steinmann]: Denkwürdigkeiten der Churfürstlichen u. Königlichen Hofmusik zu Dresden im 18. u. 19. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1863)
M. Fürstenau: ‘Die Theater in Dresden 1763 bis 1777’, Mittheilungen des sächsischen Altertumsvereins, xxv (1875), 44–78
R.M. Haas: ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte der Oper in Prag und Dresden’, Neues Archiv für sächsische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, xxxvii (1916), 68–96
R. Engländer: ‘Das Ende der Opera seria in Dresden: Naumanns Clemenza di Tito 1769’, Neues Archiv für sächsische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, xxxix (1918), 311–24
R. Engländer: ‘Dresden und die deutsche Oper im letzten Drittel des 18. Jahrhunderts’, ZMw, iii (1920–21), 1–21
R. Engländer: ‘Zur Musikgeschichte Dresdens gegen 1800’, ZMw, iv (1921–2), 199–241
R. Engländer: ‘Dresdner Musikleben und Dresdner Instrumentalpflege in der Zeit zwischen Hasse und Weber’, ZMw, xiv (1931–2), 410–20
R. Engländer: ‘Die Instrumentalmusik am sächsischen Hofe unter Friedrich August III. und ihr Repertoire’, Neues Archiv für sächsische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, liv (1933), 75–84
R. Engländer: Die Dresdner Instrumentalmusik zur Zeit der Wiener Klassik (Uppsala, 1956)
W. Reich: ‘Die gesellschaftlichen und musikalischen Grundlagen der Dresdner Opernkultur vor Johann Adolf Hasse’, Opera w dawnej Polsce na dworze Władysława IV i królów saskich: Warsaw 1969, 87–95
O. Landmann: Quellenstudien zum Intermezzo comico per musica und zu seiner Geschichte in Dresden (diss., U. of Rostock, 1972)
O. Landmann: Die Dresdener italienische Oper zwischen Hasse und Weber: ein Daten- und Quellenverzeichnis für die Jahre 1765–1817 (Dresden, 1976)
O. Landmann: ‘Die italienische Oper in Dresden nach Johann Adolf Hasse: Entwicklungszüge 1765–1832’, Die italienische Oper in Dresden von Johann Adolf Hasse bis Francesco Morlacchi: Dresden 1987, 393–416
O. Landmann: ‘Musik und Oper: Betrachtungen zu allgemeinen Entwicklungen und zur Dresdener Situation 1765–1800’, Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte, xvii (1988), 66–72
O. Landmann: ‘Dresden und Mozart, Mozart und Dresden: eine Quellenbetrachtung’, MJb 1991, 385–92
F. Nentwig: Christian Gottfried Körner: sein Wirken und Seine Bedeutung für die Entfaltung der bürgerlichen Musikkultur in Dresden während der Jahre 1785 bis 1815 (diss., U. of Dresden, 1992)
L.H. Ongley: Liturgical Music in Late 18th-Century Dresden: J.G. Naumann, J. Schuster and F. Seydelmann (diss., U. of New Haven, 1992)
O. Landmann: ‘Die Entwicklung der Dresdner Hofkapelle zum klassischen Orchester’, Basler Jb für historische Musikpraxis, xvii (1993), 175–90
O. Landmann: ‘Marginalien zum “Stile di Dresda”’, Rudolf Eller zum Achtzigsten, ed. K. Heller and A. Waczkat (Rostock, 1994), 51–7
H.-G. Ottenberg: ‘Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach und Dresden’, ibid., 59–66
C. Gurlitt: Das neue Königliche Hoftheater zu Dresden (Dresden, 1878/R)
‘Tonkünstler-Verein zu Dresden 1854–1879’, Festschrift zur 25jährigen Jubelfeier (Dresden, 1879)
M. Fürstenau: Das Conservatorium für Musik in Dresden 1856–1881 (Dresden, 1881)
A. Kohut: Das Dresdner Hoftheater in der Gegenwart (Dresden, 1888)
H. von Brescius: Die königliche sächsische musikalische Kapelle von Reissiger bis Schuch (1826–1898) (Dresden, 1898)
Gedenkbuch des Dresdner Männer-Gesangvereins 1876–1901 (Dresden, 1901)
F. Richter: ‘Die Anfänge des Dresdner Realschulwesens’, Jahresbericht der Drei-König-Schule zu Dresden Neustadt (1901), 3–42
A. Reichert: 50 Jahre Sinfoniekonzerte (Dresden, 1908)
H. Starcke: Dresdner Orpheus: Gedenkblätter zur Feier seines 75jährigen Bestehens 1834–1909 (Dresden, 1910)
A. Seidl: Die Hellerauer Schulfeste und die Bildungsanstalt Jacques-Dalcroze (Regensburg,1912)
O. Schmid: Die Heimstätten der Sächsischen Landestheater (Dresden, 1919)
O. Schmid: Der Mozart-Verein zu Dresden 1896–1921 (Dresden, 1921)
O. Schmid: Die Sächsische Staatskapelle in Dresden, 1548–1923, und ihre Konzerttätigkeit (Dresden, 1923)
T. Bauer: Der Dresdner Tonkünstlerverein in den Jahren 1854–1924 (Dresden,1924)
O. Erhardt, ed.: Opernfestspiele Dresden 1928: Gedenkbuch (Dresden, 1928)
T. Bauer, ed.: Festschrift zur 75jährigen Jubelfeier 1854–1929 des Tonkünstlervereins in Dresden (Dresden, 1929)
Festbuch des Reichsverbandes Deutscher Tonkünstler und Musiklehrer (Berlin, 1930)
K. Kreiser: 60 Jahre Dresdner Philharmonie (Dresden, 1930)
E. Müller von Asow: Dresdner Musikstätten (Dresden, 1931)
P. Adolf: Vom Hof- zum Staatstheater (Dresden, 1932)
O. Funke: Festschrift zur Jahrhundertfeier der Dresdner Oper 1834–1934 (Dresden, 1934)
R. Kötzschke: 1839–1939: 100 Jahre Dresdner Liedertafel (Dresden, 1934)
Festschrift F.-Draeseke-Feier der Landeshauptstadt Dresden anlässlich des 100. Geburtstages (Dresden, 1935)
G. Pietzsch: ‘125 Jahre Opernschaffen in Dresden’, Die Musik, xxx (1937–8), 467–71
Gestaltung und Gestalten: Jb der Staatstheater Dresden (1945–)
750-Jahr-Feier der Stadt Dresden: Dresdner Musik- und Theaterfestwochen (1956)
Festschrift zum 100jährigen Bestehen musikalischer Bildungsanstalten in Dresden (Dresden, 1956)
W. Becker: Die deutsche Oper in Dresden unter der Leitung von Carl Maria von Weber, 1817–1826 (Berlin, 1962)
S. Poladian: ‘Paul Aron and the New Music in Dresden’, Bulletin of the New York Public Library, lxvi (1962), 297–315
H. Schnoor: Die Stunde des ‘Rosenkavalier’: dreihundert Jahre Dresdner Oper (Munich, 1968)
H. Böhm: ‘Musikstadt Dresden: 25 Jahre nach der Zerstörung’, Musikrat der DDR: Bulletin, ii (1970), 79–90
E. Steindorf and D.Uhrig, eds.: Staatskapelle Dresden (Berlin, 1973)
S. Köhler: Musikstadt Dresden (Leipzig, 1976)
G. Schmeidel: ‘Dresdner Sängertraditionen’, Musikbühne 77 (Berlin, 1977), 89–106
125 Jahre Kammermusik der Staatskapelle Dresden (Dresden, 1978)
V. Hahn, ed.: Komponisten im Bezirk Dresden: eine Dokumentation (Dresden, 1979)
H. John: ‘Dresdner Musikgeschichte im 19. Jahrhundert: ein Überlick’, Dresdner Hefte (1983), no.3, pp.20–29
O. Fambach: Das Repertoire des Kgl. Theaters und der italienischen Oper zu Dresden, 1814–32 (Bonn, 1985)
Carl Maria von Weber und der Gedanke der Nationaloper: Dresden 1986
H.-R. John: ‘Oper als geistes Forum: der Regisseur Heinz Arnold erinnert sich’, Oper heute: ein Almanach der Musikbühne, ix (1986), 291–307
D. Rheinhold: ‘Aspekte faschistischer Spielplanpolitik im Musiktheater am Beispiel der Sächsischen Staatsoper Dresden’, BMw, xxviii (1986), 1, 39–52
V. Hahn: Der Wertbildungsprozess in der Musik, dargestellt am Beispiel zeitgenössischer Instrumentalmusik Dresdner Komponisten (diss., U. of Zwickau, 1987)
Opern und Musikdramen Verdis und Wagners in Dresden: Dresden 1988
Höhepunkte der Dresdner Operngeschichte im 20. Jahrhundert: Dresden 1989
K. Bauer: Die Entwicklung der Arbeitermusikbewegung in Dresden von den Anfängen bis 1933 (diss., U. of Halle, 1990)
R. Mauersberger: ‘Zum 100. Geburtstag des Kreuzkantors’, Dresdner Hefte (1990), no.2 [Konferenzbericht]
H. Schetelich: Musikalische Erinnerungsstätten in Dresden (Dresden, 1990)
M. Herrmann: ‘Zur Pflege Neuer Musik in Dresden nach dem 1. Weltkrieg’, Dresdner Hefte, ix (1991), no.1, pp.4–14
M. Herrmann: ‘Die Kreuzschule war bisher eine Insel der Seligen: zwei SED-Berichte über Kreuzschule und Kreuzchor nach 1961’, Dresdner Hefte, x (1992), no.3, pp.67–77
H. John: ‘Zum 10. Gründungsjubiläum der Singakademie Dresden’, 1884–1994 Singakademie Dresden (Dresden, 1994), 7–17
50 Jahre Rampenlicht: Landesbühnen Sachsen 1945–1995 (Dresden, 1995)
M. Heinemann and H.John, eds.: Die Dresdner Oper im 19. Jahrhundert (Laaber, 1995)
F. Fröhlich: Bands in Dresden (Dresden, 4/1996)
F. Fröhlich, ed.: Diesseits der Semperoper (Dresden, 1996)
A. Zänsler: Die Dresdner Stadtmusik, Militärmusikkorps und Zivilkapellen im 19. Jahrhundert (Laaber, 1996)
H. John: ‘Die Geschichte der Dresdner Liedertafel: ein Beitrag zum musikalischen Vereinswesen’, Dresdner Geschichtesbuch, iv, ed. Stadtmuseum Dresden (Altenburg, 1998), 81–96
M. Herrmann, ed.: Die Dresdner Kirchenmusik im 19./20. Jahrhundert (Laaber, 1998)
M. Herrmann and H.-W. Heister, eds.: Dresden und die avancierte Musik im 20. Jahrhundert, 1900–1933 (Laaber, 1999)