Uccelli [née Pazzini], Carolina Uccellini, Marco

Ulm.

German city on the Danube. An imperial residence in the Middle Ages, and later a free imperial city, Ulm was one of the most important trade centres of southern Germany between the 14th and 16th centuries. Its position on the river Danube linked it with Vienna and eastern Europe. After the Napoleonic Wars it became part of the kingdom of Württemberg and its hinterland was divided between Württemberg and Bavaria.

The minstrel Meinloh von Sevelingen was born in the nearby village of Söflingen, and around 1430 Oswald von Wolkenstein came to the city as a member of the court of Emperor Sigismund. Ulm Minster, the city’s principal church, had an organ from about 1416; a second organ was built in 1439 and enlarged in 1488. In 1530 Ulm embraced the Reformation and iconoclasts destroyed the organs in the following year. After Lutheranism was established in the city in 1571, a new organ was built by Kaspar Sturm from Regensburg (1576–8, enlarged 1597–9). A completely new organ was built by E.F. Walcker from Ludwigsburg between 1849 and 1856; it was replaced in 1969 by Walcker's Opus 5000. The minster's outstanding organists, some of whom were also composers, were Adam Steigleder (1595–1625), Sebastian Anton Scherer (1671–1712), Konrad Michael Schneider (1712–52), Johann Kleinknecht (1712–51), Johann Christoph Walther (1751–70) and, in the 20th century, Hans Jakob Haller and Edgar Rabsch. The specification of the organ in the Pauluskirche (built 1910, renewed 1970 and 1996) was influenced by Max Reger.

From about 1600 polyphonic music flourished in the minster. It was performed by 24 choristers, who attended the Gymnasium Academicum, where they received a musical education. Catholic church music was cultivated at St Michael zu den Wengen, a house of Augustinian canons, where Caspar Schollenberger (1673–1735), Joseph Lederer (1733–96), Johann Georg Niederländer (1736–94) and Michel Methic (1748–1807) lived and composed. Plays with music were staged there from the early 16th century.

The city employed musicians from the 14th century; in 1434 it received the imperial patent to maintain trumpeters and trombonists. There were some families of musicians (Maier, Oberhofer, Eberlin, Schmidtberger, Schwartzkopf) whose members were employed by the city for two or more generations. Benedictus Ducis (1532) and Hans Leo Hassler (1604–8) spent short periods in Ulm, but had little effect on its musical life. Members of the Kleinknecht family, Johann Wolfgang, Johann Stephan and the composer Jacob Friedrich (1772–94), held leading positions in the Hofkapelle at Bayreuth.

A guild of Meistersinger existed by 1517; it provided occasional theatrical performances, some with music, and survived until 1839, when the last four members of the guild handed over its flag and insignia to the Liederkranz ‘as the natural successor and representative of the old Meistersinger tradition in the new era’. From around 1667 until well after 1700 Baroque instrumental music was cultivated by a collegium musicum made up of professional and amateur musicians. The printed and manuscript music of the Schermar library, representing the music collected by patrician families in about 1600, was catalogued by Clytus Gottwald in 1993.

Music printing and instrument making flourished in Ulm for a time. The organ builders Jörg Falb (c1470), Martin Grünbach (c1500), Gilg Taiglin (c1530), Hans Ehemann (c1650) and the Schmahl family (18th and 19th centuries) and the lute and violin makers Konrad Christoph Lacher (c1575), Christoph and Georg Unseld (c1600), Georg Negele (c1615) and one of the Eberlins (c1620) all ran workshops in the city. Balthasar Kühn (d 1667) and Johann Görlin (d 1663) and their heirs printed and published the works of composers living in Ulm and the neighbouring imperial cities.

Before the first theatre was built in the Binderhof by Joseph Furttenbach (1641), the Meistersinger and pupils and students of the Gymnasium staged plays in various rooms in the town. In 1781 the Theater im Binderhof was replaced by the Komödienhaus. Both theatres were frequently visited by touring companies from outside the city. In 1870 the Komödienhaus was granted the status of a Stadttheater (municipal theatre) and in 1920 it established its own orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan from 1929 to 1934. The Stadttheater was destroyed in 1945; performances continued in a provisional theatre until a new building was opened in 1969. In 1993 a purpose-built concert hall, the Einsteinsaal, was opened at the new congress centre. The following year the theatre orchestra was renamed the Philharmonisches Orchester der Stadt Ulm.

Since the early 19th century concerts have been promoted by musical societies such as the Liederkranz (founded 1824), the Oratorienchor and the Orchesterverein Ulm/Neu-Ulm. In the 19th century military bands also played an important part in the city's musical life: Carl Ludwig Unrath (1828–1908) conducted a band in Ulm between 1851 and 1872 and Carl Teike (1864–1922) composed his famous march Alte Kameraden in the city. Musical education in Ulm is provided principally by the Städtisches Schul- und Jugendmusikwerk and the members of the Philharmonisches Orchester.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG2 (E. Stiefel, C. Gottwald)

A. Weyermann: Nachrichten von Gelehrten, Künstlern und anderen merkwürdigen Personen aus Ulm (Ulm, 1798)

T. Schön: ‘Geschichte des Theaters in Ulm’, Diözesanarchiv von Schwaben, xvii (1899); xviii (1900)

K. Blessinger: Studien zur Ulmer Musikgeschichte im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Ulm, 1913)

H. Mayer: ‘Hans Leo Hassler in Ulm (1604–1608)’, Ulm und Oberschwaben, xxxv (1958), 210–35

R.W. Sterl: ‘Der Orgelbauer Kaspar Sturm in Ulm (1576–1599)’, Ulm und Oberschwaben, xxxviii (1967), 101–31

G. Kleemann: ‘Die Orgelbauerfamilie Schmahl’, Acta Organologica, vii (1973), 71–105

H.E. Specker: Stadtgeschichte (Ulm, 1977)

L. Prütting, ed.: Zum Beispiel Ulm: Stadttheater als Kulturpolitische Lebensform (Ulm, 1990)

A. Krause-Pichler: Jakob Friedrich Kleinknecht 1722–1794 (Weissenhorn, 1991)

C. Gottwald: Katalog der Musikalien in der Schermar-Bibliothek Ulm (Wiesbaden, 1993)

ADOLF LAYER/CHRISTIAN BROY