Aachen

(Fr. Aix-la-Chapelle).
City in Germany. The cathedral and its music were the creation of
Charlemagne (742–814), who made the town the northern capital of
the Holy Roman Empire; the Holy Roman emperors were crowned
there from 813 to 1531. The city was occupied by France in 1794 and
formally annexed in 1801; after the Congress of Vienna (1814–15) it
became part of Prussia. It was severely damaged in World War II.
Aachen was the political, religious and cultural centre of
Charlemagne’s empire, and the Hofkirche was constructed according
to his own plans. The Aachen Cathedral choir dates from his founding
of the Schola Palatina, whose teachers (including Alcuin from 782)
were among the most distinguished scholars of the age. Alcuin
described the school in a poem, mentioning a singing teacher named
Sulpicius. For Charlemagne the idea of a politically united empire was
closely linked with the establishment of a uniform liturgy, set to uniform
music; his reforms in this direction led to the burning of all books
connected with the Ambrosian rite in order to ensure adherence to the
Gregorian style. As early as 774 he sent monks to Rome to study the
teaching of such chant, and in 790 Pope Hadrian I responded to
repeated requests from Charlemagne and sent two trained singers to
the north with copies of the antiphonary. Organ music was also
cultivated; in the early 9th century an Arab organ was sent to
Charlemagne by Caliph Harun-al-Rashid and installed in the Hofkirche,
while on the emperor’s instructions a second organ was built for the
cathedral.
The history of bellfounding in the city began with the early 9th-century
founder Tancho (mentioned in the Gesta Karoli) and reached its peak
in the 16th century in the work of the von Trier family. The growth of the
cult of Charlemagne (still commemorated in an annual feast) gave rise
to a characteristic Aachen chant repertory, including the rhymed
office Regali natus and the sequence Urbs aquensis. The city came to
rival Rome and Santiago de Compostela as a place of pilgrimage in the
Middle Ages; the shrine was visited every seven years from about
1238, which further enriched the city’s liturgy and music. Popular music
and pilgrims’ songs were stimulated, and wind music was played from
tower galleries, with the participation of the town musicians from 1344.
The coronation liturgy set a precedent for the organization of church
music, and the 30 coronations that took place there between 936 and
1531 were attended by a fine choir.
In the 16th century Aachen Cathedral was an important centre of
polyphony, especially of the style then developing in the Low
Countries. Johannes Mangon, working at Aachen in the 1570s,
transcribed a comprehensive collection of the music performed there in
three choirbooks (1570–75; in D-AAm); apart from Mangon’s own
works, they include those of Chastelain, Claux, Clemens non Papa,
Cleve, Crecquillon, Episcopius, Lassus, Maillard, Simon Moreau, Ponta
and Rivulo. In 1632 the chronicler Johannes Noppius recorded that
there were more musicians around the cathedral ‘than there was
standing room; and in case anyone should marvel at the beautiful
music and splendid ceremonies of this church then let him know that it
is just as fitting here as it is in sede regia’. In 1707 J.L. Blanche
founded a choir school.
During the 18th century the city’s cultural life benefited from the
presence of visitors attracted by the sulphur springs, the most notable
being Handel, who came to recover from his nervous collapse in 1737
and is reputed to have expressed his gratitude by playing the organ in
the Abbey Church. The cathedral orchestra, documented from the 17th
century, occasionally gave performances in collaboration with the
traditional city Harmoniemusik. The Städtisches Orchester was
founded in 1852, the first in the Rhineland. As early as 1835 Anton
Schindler directed performances in the city and, on feast days, in the
cathedral. The city participated in the Niederrheinisches Musikfest from
May 1825, when it gave the second performance of Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony (after its Vienna première). In the same month Spohr’s
opera Jessonda was performed to mark the opening of the Neues
Schauspielhaus (renamed the Stadttheater in 1920). Lortzing,
Burgmüller and Franck all had early successes in the expanding
musical life of 19th-century Aachen, and since Lortzing’s time the
Aachen opera stage has been a springboard for young talent.
The puritanical Cecilian Movement was fostered in the city, particularly
by the Stiftskapellmeister Franz Nekes (1844–1914). The
Gregoriushaus, a church music school, was founded by the cathedral
Kapellmeister Heinrich Böckeler (d 1894); it trains organists to be sent
to Ireland and the USA. The cathedral choir built up an international
reputation under the Kapellmeister T.B. Rehmann (d 1963) and made
many tours in France, Spain, Italy and Austria. After a long period of
inactivity the cathedral choir school was re-established in 1972 as a
private institution of the cathedral chapter. The musical reputation of
the city in the 20th century is indicated by the distinguished succession
of general music directors and conductors including Frite Busch (1912–
18), Peter Raabe (1920–33), Herbert von Karajan (1934–42), Wolfgang
Sawallisch (1953–8), Wolfgang Trommer (1962–74), Gabriel Chmura
(1974–83), Yoram David (1984–90) and Bruce Ferden (from 1990).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
MGG2 (L. Felbick)
P. à Beeck: Aquisgranum (Aachen, 1620)
J. Noppius: Aacher Chronick (Cologne, 1632, 3/1774)
K.F. Meyer: Aachensche Geschichten (Mülheim, 1781)
F. Haagen: Geschichte Aachens (Aachen, 1873–4)
Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsvereins (1879–1972)
Abdon, Bonifacio
(b Santa Cruz, Manila, 14 May 1876; d Manila, 23 April
1944). Filipino composer, conductor and violin teacher. At an early age
he studied solfège, composition, conducting and the violin with
Ladislao Bonus. He played the violin in the Rizal Orchestra in his
youth, and in 1910 he founded the Oriental Orchestra; in the early
1920s he conducted many zarzuelas and operas. He was the moving
spirit behind the Manila Chamber Music Society, of which he became
director in 1921. A well-known violin teacher, he also excelled as a
nationalist composer. Among his works are the zarzuelas Ang
sampaguita (‘The Sampaguita Flower’), Anak ng dagat (‘Son of the
Sea’), Luha’t dugo (‘Tears and Blood’), Ang masamang kaugalian (‘The
Bad Traits’), Delinquente and Declaracion de amor. Other
compositions include a cantata, O! dios sa kalangitan (‘O God in
Heaven’), Ibong adarna (‘The Adarna Bird’), a coloratura song,
and Kundiman (1920), a set of popular love songs, in which he brought
dignity and vitality to the genre.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R.C. Bañas: The Music and Theater of the Filipino
People (Manila, 1924)
E.A. Manuel: Dictionary of Philippine Biography, ii (Quezon City, 1970)

H. Böckeler: Kurze Geschichte der Singschulen (Aachen, 1890)

H. Schiffers: Aachener Heiligtumsfahrt (Aachen, 1937)
B. Poll: 150 Jahre Aachener Musikleben (Aachen, 1954)
B. Poll: Geschichte Aachens in Daten (Aachen, 1960)
H.-J. Munstermann, ed.: Beiträge zur Musikgeschichte der Stadt
Aachen II (Cologne, 1979)
RUDOLF POHL