Begin: 7:00 pm
Break: 7:40 pm
End: 8:50 pm
In 2023, the Vienna Boys' Choir celebrates its 525th anniversary.
Conducting Manuel Huber
In 2023 the Vienna Boys Choir celebrates its 525th anniversary. What is perhaps the most famous boys choir in the world grew out of the choir of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. In 1498 Maximilian moved his court to Vienna; this included the ‘singing boys’, who sang at the daily masses, at the grand dining table, at banquets, dynastic weddings, at acts of state and funerals, at Imperial Diets and royal meetings.
Maximilian’s choirboys enjoyed special training; they came from Flanders, France, Germany and from Switzerland, from Lower Austria and Tyrol. Over the centuries the Viennese court attracted many ingenious musicians and some of the boy singers were often especially talented – the brothers Joseph and Michael Haydn deputized in the imperial choir, Franz Schubert himself was a member of the imperial boys choir.
Besides the classical repertoire, for which they are famous, in Erl the Vienna Boys Choir present choral works by Jacobus Gallus and Franz Schubert as well as specially rehearsed pieces and arrangements never performed on tour before.