Thursday, April 22, 2010

Vienna Boys' Choir / ウィーン少年合唱団 / Wiener Sängerknaben

Vienna Boys' Choir is the most famous boy's choir in the world, and it is almost like an icon of Vienna.  The choir was established by Maximilian I of Habsburg in 1498.  Although it was dismissed in 1918 when Habsburg was destroyed, it was reformed again in 1924. 

The role of the choir was to provide musical accompaniment to the church mass. The boys received the top musical education, and many went on to become professional musicians. Franz Schubert or Clemens Krauss were one of them. Nowadays there ae about 100 boys aged between seven and fifteen who were strictly chosen, and they have been going around the world for the concerts.

Their concerts are being held every Sunday at the Burgkapelle inside Hofburg Imperial Palace. You can buy tickets in advance, or you can line up in front of the Burgkapelle on Sunday morning to get the extra tickets they may have.  The chapel itself is not big, but thy prepared chairs on the 2nd and 3rd floor for people like us to come and listen to the boys (and they have a huge projector showing the boys, too).  Boys will be located at the rear end of the 3rd floor, so if you get a seat facing the alter, you would not be able to see them.  Well... it would be difficult to see them from almost anywhere in the chapel to be honest.  But, at the very end, they would come downstairs and sing at the alter, so you can wait till then to take a picture - like I did :)  Not sure why we want to see them instead of just being satisfied with their singing, but anyway....

Unfortunately the alleged abuses from the past members of Vienna Boys' Choir were reported recently.

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