Schwäbische Sängerbund: Summer Night’s Fest

The singing organization “is rather unfortunate in arranging its festivals.  Some time since a summer night’s festival was arranged by this society at Funk’s Union Park . . . when it was broken off by the police, because it was arranged on a Sunday, the exercise of music and song not being allowed on Sundays.  The festivities were, therefore, postponed until last night, and great preparations had been made for the festival, in which several kindred societies were to participate.  The festivities, however, spoiled again, and they had to be postponed to some other time on account of the rain.”

“[T]he Swaebischer Saengerbund, a prosperous German musical organization, celebrated last night a summer night’s festival, which was quite a successful affair; for on this occasion it was not disturbed or interrupted by the police or a rain storm, as on former occasions. . . . The singers of the society at intervals gathered around a tree on the platform, and there rendered a series of fine chorus songs in a very perfect style, the principal of which was the well known poem of Uhland, composed by Kreutzer—‘Das ist der Tag des Herrn’— &c.  The society is composed of about one hundred active singers, who are members of a singers’ union in their native State of Wurtemberg, from which the name of the society is derived.  The text books of the society are annually published in Stuttgart and thence forwarded to New York.  The festivities commenced late in the evening; but, the weather being favorable, the grounds were visited by about two thousand persons during the night.”