Thomanerchor Leipzig

St Thomas’s Boys Choir Leipzig has an almost 800-year-long history. Its members, the so called Thomaner, live and study at St Thomas’s school, and have their musical home at St Thomas’s church in Leipzig. St Thomas’s Boys Choir is only half a century younger than the city itself, and is its oldest cultural institution. At the Frankfurt Reichstag in 1212, Otto IV sanctioned the settlement of Augustine canons in a monastery dedicated to St Thomas at Leipzig. From the very beginning, liturgical singing formed part of the education. Georg Rhau, whose two-year tenure as cantor at St Thomas witnessed the dispute between Martin Luther and Johann Eck, heads the long list of famous cantors. Although, initially, cantors remained in office for only short periods, Sethus Calvisius already held his post for the duration of twenty years between 1594 and 1615. Johann Hermann Schein (1616–1630) and Johann Kuhnau (1701–1722) were two of his early successors. Johann Sebastian Bach was installed as cantor at St Thomas on 31 May/1 June 1723, and was to remain in this post for 27 years. The regular performances of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Passion settings, Christmas Oratorio, and of his Mass in B minor acquired their fame in the early twentieth century during the cantorship of Karl Straube.

More information about St Thomas’s Boys Choir Leipzig at http://www.leipzig-online.de/thomanerchor/