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Hildesheim sank in debris and ash in the hail of bombs on March 22, 1945. Together with the Dom and the Michaeliskirche, the powerful gothic Bürgerkirche St. Andreas also burned down up to the walls. The "Nürnberg of the north", called so because of singular medieval framework architecture, was not any more! Later Kantor Reinhold Brunnert began 10 years of service in the Evangelist Andreas-Gemeinde, with the St. Jakobi-Kirche as Gemeindekirche, because that gothic Basilica could be inaugurated again only in 1965. It had created the St. Andreas-Kantorei Hildesheim (= SAKH) as a high performance community choir, which increased within short time to 75 members.
Already in 1956 the SAKH had a lasting impressing concert achievement with the performance of George Frideric Handel's Messiah. Hereby and in the years after they gave certification of to high musical requirement of the Kantors and the Kantorei existing today. With the appointment Bernhard Römer as Kantor in 1989, a new section began in the Kantoreigeschichte. Continuously he has developed the SAKH to a generally recognised vocal ensemble of considerable musical quality today. The SAKH has seen its major task in the musical performance within the service.
With the steady development of big oratorio works, as well as the fastidious a-cappella-literature of all styles and periods, the SAKH proves the high efficiency regularly in religious concerts. So far they have performed works as Marienvesper by Monteverdi, Weihnachtshistorie by Heinrich Schütz, the Passions (BWV 244, BWV 245), the Weihnachts-Oratorium (BWV 248) and the Mass in B minor (BWV 232) by J.S. Bach, the oratorios Joshua And Saul by G.F. Handel, the Requiem and the Große Messe c-Moll by Mozart, the oratorios Paulus and Elias as well as Lobgesang by Felix Mendelssohn, the Requiem of Johannes Brahms, the Messe f-Moll by Bruckner and the Chichester Psalms by Leonard Bernstein.
With the War Requiem by Benjamin Britten in a joint performance with the Göttinger Stadtkantorei on March 22, 1995 to the memory of the destruction Hildesheim, the choreographed Johannes-Passion (BWV 245) by J.S. Bach with the ballet of the Staatstheaters Braunschweig as Expo-Project 2000, and the staged premiere of the Weihnachts-Oratorium El Pessebre by Pablo Casals together with the Stadttheater Hildesheim under the direction of Piere Léon in 2003 the SAKH shaped in outstanding way the music landscape in Hildesheim and beyond.
The SAKH has participated several times in productions for the NDR and in CD recordings, so that its broad power spectrum is documented. In the context of the partnership between cities, the SAKH which undertook in 1967 for the first time a concert tour to south-west France and to the twin city Angoulême. Several tours there followed, last in 2003 with the Matthäus-Passion (BWV 244) by Bach. With the concert tour to St. Petersburg in 1997 the choir set a further indication of friendly-musical community beyond frontiers. The Linzer Kantorei in Austria is connected in cordial friendship with the SAKH until today. |
