The 'Collegia Musica'

chapter 4 The ‘Collegia Musica’

4a Types and Functions

At various times archival or musical sources relating to amateur music societies have been mentioned: in the following, a focus is placed on these social bodies and in particular on the collegia in the small area between Zurich and Winterthur. Collegia musica were mostly—but not exclusively—founded in the Reformed regions of German-speaking Switzerland, and were made up in principle entirely of amateurs. These music societies were similar to the many collegia diffused across Europe, of which but a few examples are recalled here. The Nuremberg patricians who joined the Musikkräntzlein, founded in 1588, cultivated a cross-confessional repertoire with a focus on Italian music, just as did the Swiss societies. The collegium in Utrecht, remarkably, dedicated its rehearsals to instrumental music only for several years after its foundation in 1631. The Hamburg music society was founded around 1660 with the support of Matthias Weckmann. The bourgeois musical academy in Catholic Prague was placed under the protection of Johann Hubert Hartig, patron of Jan Dismas Zelenka—but alas, very little is known of its activities. The Leipzig student society had famously the honour of being directed by Johann Sebastian Bach.1 Antoine-Elysée Cherbuliez identified one specificity of Swiss societies in that they recruited members from among the town elites, while Claudia Heine identified another in their being long-lived.2 Some present-day societies (the Musik- kollegium Winterthur, and the Allgemeine Musik-Gesellschaft of Zurich and of Basel) in fact derive without intermission from their seventeenth-century

1 Giselbrecht, Crossing boundaries, pp. 100–103 and 162; Johann Cornelis Marius van Riems- dijk, Het Stads-Muziekcollegie te Utrecht (Collegium Musicum Ultrajectinum) 1631–1881: Eene bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der toonkunst in Nederland (Utrecht: J. L. Beijers, 1881), pp. 3–5, 81–83; Max Seiffert, ‘Matthias Weckmann und das Collegium Musicum in Hamburg’, Sammel- bände der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft, 2 (1900/1), pp. 111–112; Václav Kapsa and Claire Madl, ‘Weiss, the Hartigs and the Prague Music academy: research into the profound silence left by a pope of music’, Journal of the lute society of America, 33 (2000), pp. 47–86; Herbert Pankratz, ‘J.S. Bach and his Leipzig Collegium Musicum’, The Musical Quarterly, 49 (1983), pp. 323–353. 2 Cherbuliez, Die Schweiz in der deutschen Musikgeschichte, p. 243; Heine, Claudia, “Aus reiner und wahrer Liebe zur Kunst ohne äussere Mittel”: bürgerliche Musikvereine in deutschsprachi- gen Städten des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts, PhD dissertation (University of Zurich, 2009), p. 171.

The ‘collegia Musica’ 125

ancestors.3 It is suggested here, in addition, that at least some of the Swiss music societies were characterised by their comparative liberality: in the music societies, some of the constraints of the Reformed society were relaxed, creat- ing some space for a certain freedom of thought, speech, and action. This was possible on account of the privileged social rank of many members, and of the strictly private character of the societies. In this respect, Swiss collegia musica might be compared with the collegia in the United Provinces;4 however, it must be remembered that the Dutch were allowed a degree of liberty in social life, including religious toleration, that was unthinkable in Switzerland. The Swiss collegia musica during the seventeenth and early eighteenth cen- turies were private societies that gave themselves the goal of “helping out” the art of music—after the phrase used in 1663 in Berne.5 Music societies existed in Aarau, Basel, Berne, Bischofszell, Burgdorf, Chur, Frauenfeld, Herisau, Sankt Gallen, Schaffhausen, Thun, Trogen, Wetzikon, Winterthur, Zofingen and Zu- rich, and the list is probably incomplete. In some towns—at least in Berne, Zurich and Sankt Gallen—there existed two, or even three music societies at the same time.6 In the eighteenth century a few Catholic music societies came into existence. With the exception of the secular Academy in Bellinzona, they were organised as religious congregations under the patronage of St Cecilia. The oldest known is the Cecilian music society in Wil (in the confessionally mixed territory of the Catholic abbot of St Gallen), which was proposed to the town council in 1710 and founded 1715.7 The congregation of St Catherine and St Cecilia in Rapperswil, on lake Zurich, was approved by Pope Benedict xiii in 1726—it counted also eleven women among its members—and renewed in 1737.8 Another Cecilian society was founded some years later, in 1767, in the

3 Kurmann, Dem Provinziellen widerstehen; Heine, “Aus reiner und wahrer Liebe”; and Tilman Seebass, Die Allgemeine Musikgesellschaft Basel, 1876–1976: Festschrift zum hundertjährigen Bestehen (Basel: s.n., 1976). 4 See Noske, Music Bridging Divided Religions, vol. 1, pp. 23–25. 5 “… aufgeholffen werden”; Brönnimann, Der Zinkenist und Musikdirektor Johann Ulrich Sultz- berger, p. 97. 6 Nef, Die Collegia Musica; Cherbuliez, Die Schweiz in der deutschen Musikgeschichte, pp. 296–297; Geering, ‘Geschichte der Musik’, p. 85; Gerhard Aeschbacher, ‘Die Reformation und das kirchenmusikalische Leben im alten Bern’, in 450 Jahre Berner Reformation: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Berner Reformation und zu Niklaus Manuel, Archiv des Historischen Vereins des Kantons Bern, 64/5 (Berne: Historischer Verein des Kantons Bern, 1980–81), p. 246, n. 30. 7 Alfred Widmer, Liebhaber musizieren in der Kleinstadt: Festschrift zum 275-jährigen Bestehen des Orchestervereins Wil, 1715–1990 (Wil: Orchesterverein, 1990), pp. 8, 11. 8 Josef Hollenstein, ‘Rapperswil zur Zeit der Bruderschaftsgründung’, in Eduard Bürgi (ed.), 250 Jahre Bruderschaft der Heiligen Caecilia und Katharina Rapperswil, 1737–1987, Jubiläumsschrift