October 15, 1853: The Sängerfest is born
The following information is revised from the Texas State Handbook - Follow this link for more details
The History of the Texas State Sängerbund: Celebrating German Musical Heritage
On this day in 1853, the first state Sängerfest, or singers' festival, began in New Braunfels. After a successful Fourth of July celebration in 1853, the New Braunfels Germania male singing society invited similar organizations from Austin, San Antonio, and Sisterdale to a two-day festival held in New Braunfels on October 15 and 16, 1853. Each group sang a cappella separately and joined together for works by Felix Mendelssohn and Heinrich Marschner.
The Texas State Sängerbund is an association of German singing societies. After a successful Fourth of July celebration in 1853, the New Braunfels Germania male singing society invited similar organizations from Austin, San Antonio, and Sisterdale to a state Saengerfest (singers' festival), held in New Braunfels on October 15 and 16, 1853. Each group sang a cappella separately and joined together for works by Felix Mendelssohn and Heinrich Marschner.
At the second Saengerfest, held in San Antonio in May 1854, when the societies formed the Texas State Sängerbund (Deutsch-Texanischer Sängerbund or German Texan Singers' League), participation extended to singers from Coletoville, La Grange, Indianola, and Victoria. The next year's and each succeeding Saengerfest before the Civil War brought added members or increased musical sophistication. In 1860 the first participating mixed chorus (male and female) contributed excerpts from Franz Joseph Haydn's Creation.
The Civil War disrupted plans for an 1861 Saengerfest in Austin, for which orchestral participation had been planned, and the festivals did not begin again until September 1870 in San Antonio on a more modest scale. There was a Saengerfest in New Braunfels in May 1873. The festival in San Antonio in October 1874 was a milestone. An orchestra of symphonic proportions, conducted by Professor Müller, participated in the public concert.
Not to be outdone, Austin imported the orchestra of the National Theater of New Orleans from St. Louis, Missouri, for the April 1879 Saengerfest. With the addition of out-of-state musicians and non-Germanic politicians to speak, the festivals now became more oriented to the entire community rather than primarily to the German element.
