Articles on the joyful nature of German singing festivals in America

Event Information

Venue(s):

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
1 February 2020

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

16 Jul 1869
21 Jul 1869

Program Details

For more on the festival in Baltimore, see event entry of 07/02/69: Articles on New York’s representation at a major choral festival in Baltimore.

Performers and/or Works Performed

Citations

1)
Article: New-York Daily Tribune, 16 July 1869, 4.

“The Baltimore Sangerfest is over, and the singers are coming home, full of the joy and good humor of their pleasant festival. We wish that our sober American brethren would take example from these jolly Germans in the way of conducting musical celebrations. If we give a musical festival in New-York, what is it but a big concert, where we solemnly pay our dollars at the door of Steinway Hall, and listen quietly day after day to long programmes which, if we only durst say so, we find a good deal of a bore? Boston has her Jubilee, but even that, with all its popular excitements, is almost as somber as a singing school, and the freest bursts of enthusiasm bear a strange sort of likeness to the impulses of the camp meeting. But when the Germans go about a thing of this kind, they do it in right merry earnest. Song and jest go together. The harmony of sweet sounds accompanies the jovial exercises of social enjoyment, and their musical gatherings are festivals of good humor which must bring mental rest and refreshment to all who participate in them.

“We Americans don’t know how to enjoy ourselves in this fashion, for our lives have been hard and busy, and we have never felt willing to spare a few days for pure fun. But we could learn if we tried. The next time our Teutonic fellow-citizens have a Sangerfest, we hope they will give us a cordial invitation to join in it. We shall learn something from the spectacle, and we shall very soon be found contributing our full share to the merriment.”

2)
Article: New-York Daily Tribune, 21 July 1869, 4.

Article on the “deportment” of Germans in leisurely activities.