We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2011
A Liedertafel concert at which the former Governor His Excellency Sir Henry Loch and Lady Loch were present was reported in the Illustrated Australian News and Musical Times of 1889 as follows:
In the course of some remarks Lord Loch made the statement that the advancement of musical culture in Melbourne is to be attributed to the influence of Germans. Now although the community includes some excellent musicians of that nationality, the opinion expressed by our late governor is by no means in accordance with facts. It is only just that honour should be given where it is due and the untiring efforts of the English musicians in the colony in educating public taste ought to be thoroughly recognised.
1 I would like to thank Thomas Darragh and Walter Struve for reading this paper and providing invaluable comments. I would also like to thank Ian Burk for help with the German-language newspapers.
2 Illustrated Australian News and Musical Times (2 Dec. 1889): 14.
3 Clyne, Michael, ‘Multilingual Melbourne. Nineteenth Century Style’ Journal of Australian Studies 17 (Nov. 1985): 69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The German-language press at the time claimed that the census had missed a large number of immigrants and that the real figures during this period were between 20,000 and 30,000. The census figures were 10,418 in 1861 and 8,995 by 1871.
4 Clyne, Michael, ‘The German Language in Victoria’ in The German Connection: Sesquicentenary Essays on German-Victorian Crosscurrents, 1835–1985, ed. Bodi, Leslie and Jeffries, Stephen (Clayton [Vic.], c.1985): 9.Google Scholar
5 Struve, Walter, ‘Nineteenth-Century German Melbourne on Display: Musings of a Curator’ Baron von Mueller's German Melbourne, Plenty Valley Papers vol. 3, ed. Mitchell, Ellen I. (Bundoora [Vic.], 2000): 106.Google Scholar Struve is quoting Bonyhady, Tim, ‘German Melbourne Artists, Scientists, Explorers’ in Australische Impressionen, ed. Gercke, Hans (Heidelberg [Vic.], [1987]), 18Google Scholar.
6 Brahe's active involvement seems to have lessened in 1871 after he was appointed Imperial German Consul, but he was very active in the first few years. Mueller's involvement was extensive throughout the later part of the century.
7 The Sydney Morning Herald (14 Mar. 1883): 2, for instance, includes an extensive advertisement for the ‘Royal Conservatory of Music in Leipzig’ giving details of curriculum and costs and stating that ‘a pamphlet containing full explanation is furnished gratis by the Board of Directors, and may be obtained from any booksellers or music dealer both here or abroad’.
8 Much work needs to be done on this topic. Although information is known about a few subsequently well-known Melburnians who went to study in Germany in the late nineteenth century, such as Hutcheson, Henry Handel Richardson and Johannes Kruse, there were clearly many more whose names are little known today.
9 Ehrlich, Cyril, The Piano: A History (Oxford and New York, 1990): 83.Google Scholar
10 Ehrlich, , The Piano: 87.Google Scholar
11 Veit-Brause, Irmline, ‘‘Then Shall a New Page Grace the Nation's Story”: German-Australian Relations at the Time of the Centennial International Exhibition, Melbourne, 1888’ in The German Connection, ed. Bodi, and Jeffries, : 49–50.Google Scholar
12 French pianist and composer Henri Kowalski was resident in Australia for extended periods during the 1880s and 1890s. See Murphy, Kerry, ‘Henri Kowalski: Prince of the Pianoforte’ Centre for Studies in Australian Music Review 13 (Jun. 2001): 1–3Google Scholar.
13 Critic Oscar Comettant visited Australia in the 1880s as one of the jurors for the Melbourne International Exhibition. He wrote about his travels in Au pays des kangourous et des mines d'or (Paris, 1890). This is available in translation as In the Land of Kangaroos and Goldmines: A Frenchman's View of Australia in 1888, trans. Judith Armstrong (Adelaide, 1980). He discusses the French contribution to the Exhibition at length on pages 230–4.
14 Article in the Courrier Australien (Sydney) (3 Dec. 1892). In fact, as Ehrlich, states in The Piano (p. 82),Google Scholar in 1880 Australians had been spending at least ten times as much on English as on German pianos. By 1900 the pattern was exactly reversed.
15 ‘Le rossignol chante bien, sans posséder des ailes dorées’ Courrier Australien (3 Dec. 1892).
16 Ehrlich, , The Piano: 82–8.Google Scholar
17 Two German sources remain: a subscription book, the Mitglieder Liste, and a book of minutes, Melbourner Deutsche Liedertafel Protokoll Buch (27 March 1878 to 11 March 1895) whose first few pages are in German (1879) just before the Liedertafel abandoned the German language in its meetings. Both are held in Liedertafel Collection (hereafter LC), Percy Grainger Museum, University of Melbourne as is all other archival material, unless stated otherwise.
18 Nash, William P., Music in the Cabbage Garden: Pioneers of Music in Victoria (Prahran [Vic.], 1988): 45.Google Scholar
19 ‘Detmold [the President] … said the liedertafel were greatly indebted to the press for the publicity given to their proceedings’ Argus (17 Feb. 1871): 6.
20 He appears in the Mitglieder Liste as having joined in May 1869, his profession given in English as ‘Reporter for the Argus’.
21 Argus (12 Nov. 1868): 5.
22 For convenience sake I am using Australian to refer to people resident in Australia, many of whom were of course of British birth, and referred to themselves as British not Australian. The Germans referred to all as Engländer, whether British or Australian born, even into the twentieth century. I am indebted to Thomas Darragh for this last point.
23 See Nitsche, P., ‘Die Liedertafel im System der Zelterschaen Gründungen’ in Studien zur Musikgeschichte Berlins im frühen 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Dahlhaus, C. (Regensburg, 1980): 11–26;Google ScholarHeemann, Annegret, Männergesangvereine im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderte (Frankfurt, 1991)Google Scholar; Brusniak, Friedhelm, ‘Chor und Chormusik’ Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Sachteil, vol. 2, ed. Blume, F. (New York, 1994–)Google Scholar.
24 West, Ewan, ‘Liedertafel’ in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, eds Sadie, Stanley and Tyrrell, John (Macmillan, 2001).Google Scholar As a critic for Dwight's Journal of Music commented in 1852, ‘Liederkranz, Liedertafel, Sängerbund, Sangerverein &c, are all common designations of the German clubs and circles of male partsingers’ 2 (1853): 86Google Scholar.
25 Annegret Heemann's book Männergesangvereine lists hundreds of choirs in existence by the early twentieth century, including military, hunting, and even stenographers’ choirs: 275.
26 See Snyder, Suzanne Gail, ‘The Männerchor Tradition in the United States: A Historical Analysis of its Contribution to American Musical Culture’ Ph.D. Diss., University of Iowa, 1991.Google Scholar
27 See Hiller's, Ferdinand overview of the situation in The Musical World (31 Aug. 1872): 551–2.Google Scholar
28 For further information on this tour see Snyder, ‘The Männerchor Tradition in the United States’.
29 Tiemeyer-Schutte, Meike, Das deutsche Sangerwesen in Südaustralien vor Ausbruch des ersten Weltkrieges zwischen Bewahrung von Deutschtum und Anglikanisierung (Munster, 2000): 87.Google Scholar
30 Tiemeyer-Schutte, , Das deutsche Sangerwesen in Südaustralien: 30.Google Scholar
31 See Darragh, Thomas A., ‘The Deutsche Vereine of Victoria in the Nineteenth Century’ Baron von Mueller's German Melbourne: 68, 74.Google Scholar For fuller information on these early years, Darragh's article is invaluable, as is Heidler's, Johannes undated essay ‘The German Liedertafel as an Example of the Integration of Germans in Australia’ (Grainger Museum, University of Melbourne).Google Scholar This essay looks at the origins of the Liedertafels in Melbourne but leaves virtually untouched the Melbourner Deutsche Liedertafel of 1868. Elsasser left the Melbourner Deutsche Liedertafel in 1873, and from 1874 was closely associated with the Metropolitan Liedertafel (hereafter MetL).
32 Kosmopolit 1 (23 Dec. 1856): 47, ‘so verödeten gesellschaftlichen Zusammenlebens … “respectability” ganz unbeschadet bleibt, wenn man sich gemeinschaftlichen Unterhaltungen gesellig anschliesst und die beschränkte Hochnasigkeit fallen lässt’.
33 The German community perceived this as a landmark occasion; an extensive coverage of the event in the German language newspaper Germania (27 Nov. 1862): 420, described it as a seed from which a tree could grow.
34 See in particular an article in Germania (6 Feb. 1868): 1533.
35 Animosity seems to have abated somewhat, an article in the Argus (7 June 1879): 5 reports that a meeting was called between the Deutsche Liedertafel, the Deutsche Verein and the Turnverein to discuss the building of some rooms for their joint accommodation.
36 Germania (14 May 1868) 1588 mentions the first ‘public’ concert (followed by a ball) where members were allowed to invite friends; they had an audience of 200.
37 Mentioned in ‘Correspondenz aus Victoria’ Australische Deutsche Zeitung (Tanunda) (13 Mar. 1868): 84. Römpler's given name was never usedGoogle Scholar.
38 Former member of the Wiener Männergesangverein, he had founded a Liedertafel himself in Linz and was closely acquainted with Lachner and Storch, Austrian composers of Liedertafel repertoire. He had been in Australia since at least the 1850s and had been one of the key figures in the Sangefest of 1862 mentioned above (Australasian Sketcher (17 May 1873): 23). His name is sometimes also spelt Springhorn.
39 Research has been done on Püttmann, the most significant German writer and intellectual to come to Australia after the Revolutionary years of 1848–49. Püttmann soon became active in the literary life of the German community and published a number of German-language journals during this period in Melbourne. See entry by Bodi, Leslie in Australian Dictionary of Biography (hereafter ADB), vol. 5 (Melbourne, 1974).Google Scholar
40 Australische Deutsche Zeitung (Tanunda) (1 May 1873): 4.Google Scholar The article discusses Sprinckhorn's funeral.
41 For further information see Radic, Thérèse, ‘Julius Siede’ ADB, vol. 6Google Scholar.
42 Australische Deutsche Zeitung (Tanunda) (31 Jul. 1868): 244, ‘wir wollen sein ein einig Volk von Brüdern’.Google Scholar
43 Argus (17 Feb. 1871): 6.
44 Reviews of the German Liedertafel performances in London in the middle of the century show they too had mixed programmes although to a lesser degree. For instance, in a concert given by the Cologne Liedertafel in London in 1857 the vocal items were divided into three, and in between the sections there were items performed on the piano by a female pianist who was accompanying the group on tour: The Musical World (30 May 1857): 314.
45 Australische Deutsche Zeitung (Tanunda) (20 Oct. 1868): 317.Google Scholar
46 He continues Out of habit he maintains the same clothing and building styles under the southern sky that he knew in the foggy lands of home’. Püttmann, Hermann, ‘Australia: Light and Darkness’ trans. Jeffries, Stephen, in The German Connection, ed. Bodi, and Jeffries, : 222Google Scholar.
47 Australische Deutsche Zeitung (Tanunda) (20 Oct. 1868).Google Scholar
48 Australische Deutsche Zeitung (1 Apr. 1870).
49 Australische Deutsche Zeitung (16 Sep. 1870).
50 Argus (30 Jun. 1869): 5.
51 Argus (8 Mar. 1871): 5. Unfortunately I have no way of finding out whether this happened or not, but one can presume that it did.
52 Argus (8 Mar. 1871): 5. Australian membership of other German associations continues throughout the century even if the association maintained its German organization. For instance, in 1887, 300 of the 600 members of the Melbourne Turnverein were said to be English. See Meyer, Charles, A History of Germans in Australia 1839–1945 (Melbourne, 1990): 52Google Scholar.
53 Argus (8 Mar. 1871): 5.
54 This is mentioned in almost every review in the Argus.
55 See Thérèse Radic ‘Major Choral Organizations in Late Nineteenth-Century Melbourne’ (this issue).
56 I am indebted to Thomas Darragh for pointing this out.
57 Argus (14 Oct. 1868): 5. He became the Imperial Consul in 1871 after German unification.
58 Argus (7 Sep. 1869): 5.
59 Australische Deutsche Zeitung (18 Nov. 1870). Only the Captains are mentioned in the press. A later report in the Australische Deutsche Zeitung (Tanunda) (16 Apr. 1874),Google Scholar mentions again the officers of a German ship visiting the Liedertafel.
60 Argus (26 Jun. 1869): 5.
61 Argus (3 Jun. 1869): 5. There is no evidence that the bust was ever donated.
62 Argus (8 Dec. 1869): 5.
63 Chorus is obviously being used here as an umbrella term for all vocal works.
64 By now the president was Detmold with Römpler still vice-president, Troedel treasurer and Lang librarian. Reproduced in the Argus (8 Mar. 1871): 5.
65 They both have marks on the back of them that suggest that they were mounted on a board at some stage.
66 As reported in an undated (presumably early 1879) Argus clipping in a MelbL Scrapbook (1879–89).
67 MelbL Minutes (13 Jan. 1879) note the move to abolish the rules regarding the use of the German language.
68 MelbL Minutes (27 Jan. 1879).
69 This happened on 18 February 1879. The property of the former MDL was vested in three trustees, two of whom were to be members of the German Association of Victoria. Trustees could lend, hire, sell or otherwise dispose of the property (Argus clipping 1879, MelbL Scrapbook (1879–89)).
70 Mentioned in the Australische Deutsche Zeitung (Tanunda) (1 May 1873): 4Google Scholar.
71 Mentioned in the MelbL Minutes (18 Feb. 1879).
72 The Archives of the German Association, now part of Club Tivoli, apparently do not contain any music.
73 MelbL Minutes (12 Mar. 1879).
74 German Liedertafels persisted in a small way in association with the German clubs in Melbourne, the Turnverein and the club Tivoli. In June 1896 the members of the Turnverein Liedertafel, the Tivoli Liedertafel and the Quartettverein Arion formed an Allgemeine deutsche Liedertafel, a united choral society to which all belonged, and invited other German-speaking singers to join. The aim was to foster German men's part-singing. See Darragh, ‘The Deutsche Vereine’ 77–8Google Scholar.
75 See programme outlined in Argus (12 Nov. 1868): 5.
76 Mentioned in Tiemeyer-Schutte, Das deutsche Sangerwesen: 67.
77 Püttmann, , Deutsches Liederbuch für Australien (Melbourne, 1862).Google Scholar
78 Argus (12 Nov. 1868): 5 estimates 400 and the Australische Deutsche Zeitung (Tanunda) (27 Nov. 1869)Google Scholar estimates 300.
79 This is mentioned in the Australische Deutsche Zeitung (Tanunda) (27 Nov. 1868): 380Google Scholar.
80 Argus (12 Nov. 1868): 5.
81 Argus (16 Dec. 1870): 6.
82 Argus (10 Jan. 1877): 6.
83 See Victorian Report in the Süd-Australische Zeitung (20 Nov. 1867): 8.
84 ‘Es braust ein Ruf wie Donnerhall,/Wie Schwertgeklirr und Wogenprall:/Zum Rhein, zum Rhein, zum deutschen Rhein,/Wer will des Stromes Hüter sein?/Lieb’ Vaterland, magst ruhig sein,/Fest steht und treu die Wacht am Rhein!’ www. oberschlesien-aktuell.de/volkslieder/d/dwacht.htm, accessed 15 Dec. 2003.
85 Australische Deutsche Zeitung (21 Oct. 1870).
86 Argus (10 Jan. 1877): 6.
87 Argus (17 Feb. 1871): 7.
88 Review, Argus (19 Apr. 1883), mentions it as an ‘old favourite which we frequently named some years ago, when the society never used any but the German language’ and called it a ‘most laughter [sic] moving arrangement of well-known themes which was very well performed last night, and was encored’.
89 Challier, Ernst, Grosser Männergesangkatalog: mit Nachtragen I bis VI und Hilfsregister zum Hauptband, 1900–1912 (facsimile reprint Wiesbaden, 1979).Google Scholar
90 See LC for scores.
91 See Cecelia Hopkins Porter's fascinating book, The Rhine as Musical Metaphor: Cultural Identity in German Romantic Music (Boston, 1996)Google Scholar for a discussion of the patriotic symbolism of the Rhine and its idealization as a majestic image of nature during nineteenth-century Germany in all the arts.
92 Musical World (31 Aug. 1872): 551–2.
93 Nash, William P., Charles Elsasser: Nation's Demise – Melba's Rise (Heidelberg Heights [Vic.], 1993): 7.Google Scholar
94 Referred to in the Argus (26 Jul. 1871): 7.
95 See footnote 111.
96 Australische Deutsche Zeitung (Tanunda) (9 Jun. 1871).Google Scholar
97 Argus (4 May 1886): 6 refers to Elsasser's cantata ‘Germania’ composed and sung in Melbourne on the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian war.
98 Australische Deutsche Zeitung (Tanunda) (9 Jun. 1871).Google Scholar
99 ‘Abschied’ ‘Vor des Schlacht’ ‘Auf mein Deutschland’ ‘Aus der Soltenlists’ ‘Den Deutschen todten’ ‘Trium Victoria hoch fliegt dein Aar’ ‘Germania’.
100 Former fiancée of Baron von Mueller.
101 Argus (26 Jul. 1871): 7. Score in LC.
102 Argus (24 Feb. 1876): 7.
103 Argus (11 Feb. 1880): 7. Review of MetL smoke night.
104 Argus (11 Feb. 1880): 7. It was also reviewed in the Age (10 Feb. 1880): 2.
105 Argus (21 Nov. 1899): 6. The practice of changing nation to suit the occasion was apparently not uncommon, and, in a MelbL concert of 13 July 1897, the choir sang Bruch's Britannia, which was stated to have come via London and was ‘a patriotic song translated from the German and adapted for the Queen's Jubilee by the Rev. Canon Carlisle’. Mentioned in Argus (14 Jul. 1897).
106 Young and Jackson's Hotel.
107 Illustrated Australia News (20 Nov. 1871): 211.
108 Article from 1878 transcribed in Nash, Music in the Cabbage Garden: 62.
109 Thanks to Peggy Lais for this information.
110 A review in the Argus (11 Jul. 1879): 4, mentions the receipt by Elsasser, on behalf of the Victorian Association of Professional Musicians, of a large quantity of scores and band (term commonly used for orchestral) parts from Messr Breitkopf and Härtel.
111 Eugene Ascherberg (b. Dresden, 1843; d. London, 28 May 1908) was an active member of the MDL, often performing piano with them, and in early 1874 was elected president. He joined in April 1871 and left in December 1877, see Mitglieder Liste.
112 See Sue Cole, ‘“As Much by Force of Circumstances as by Ambition”: The Programming Practices of the Melbourne Liedertafel Societies, 1880–1905’ (this issue).
113 The Apollo Club of about 50 male voices, founded in 1871.
114 Boston Evening Transcript (12 May 1892) (MetL Scrapbook (1881–83)). The MetL did have significant links with America. The Boston Apollo Club donated the vocal score of Tannhäuser (Novello) to them in 1882 (presumably brought over with the BQC) together with a bound volume of their 1882 programmes. As well as the Boston Chickering male part-song books, they purchased music from G. Schirmer, New York and A.P. Schmidt, Boston, the latter a major supplier of part-songs to the American Männerchor. However, in the 1890s the MetL was also dealing directly with Breitkopf and Härtel in Leipzig.
115 The Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition: The Official Catalogue of Exhibits (Melbourne [Vic.], 1888): 123.Google Scholar
116 Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition: 43, 44.
117 19 April 1873, unsigned.
118 26 March 1888, ‘In Memoriam His Majesty William I, late Emperor of Germany’.
119 1796–1800, setting of Horace's ode beginning ‘Integer vitae’ written by Fleming, a German medical doctor.
