The Tölzer Knabenchor Brings Bach’s Vision to Life

A shortage of qualified personnel does not appear to be a purely modern-day problem, as it was back in August 1730—the seventh year of his tenure as Leipzig’s Thomaskantor—that Johann Sebastian Bach vented his displeasure at the constant staffing problems in his St. Thomas Choir in a letter to the Leipzig City Council. In his famous Entwurff einer wohlbestallten Kirchen Music (Draft of a Well-Appointed Church Music), he demanded “at least 3 sopranos, 3 altos, 3 tenors and just as many basses, so that if one of them becomes indisposed (as happens very often, and especially at this time of year …) it would still be possible to sing a double-choir motet.” The Tölzer Knabenchor has set itself the challenge of fulfilling Bach’s dream by recording a selection of his cantatas with these richly expanded forces — a bold and thrilling sonic experience.

A staffing problem… dating back to the 18th century!

At the time, Bach was responsible for four churches every Sunday with his 55 Thomaner singers, who also had to fill in among the instrumentalists when the city musicians, professional string players, or students were unavailable. As a result, he often found himself leading his concerted music services with just one singer per part—especially in double-choir works. What’s more, to Bach’s dismay, the Thomaner students weren’t necessarily chosen for their musical talent. He unflatteringly referred to some as mere “rejects”: “The rejects are assigned to St. Peter’s Church, namely those who don’t understand music, but can just barely sing a chorale.” To even maintain a distinction between concertato and ripieno, Bach ideally wished for four singers per voice part. As he wrote in his Entwurff: “It would be even better if the cohort were so arranged that each voice part had four singers, thus providing 16 people per choir.” History tells us that this wish was never fulfilled. Bach’s Entwurff went unanswered.

Fulfilling Bach’s dream

Until the end of the 20th century, that is, when scholars and musicians like Joshua Rifkin and Andrew Parrott gave it serious attention. From there, fierce debates erupted in the Bach community over what constituted an authentic performance. Was it the ensemble Bach had—or the one he wanted? Was it one or two singers per part, as argued by Rifkin and Parrott, or four? Both options have now found ample expression on concert stages and recordings. What has never actually been recorded, however, is a performance of Bach’s cantatas with three to four boy sopranos and altos per part, who then also sing the solos.

Peter Catalano, President of the American Concerto Vocale Foundation (which is funding the project we are talking about here), took notice. “I was always surrounded by early music in Boston, and it was also a centre for the soloist approach, particularly from Boston University and Joshua Rifkin. I then read Andrew Parrott’s book on it, then the Entwurff, and said: Why don’t we try this, if only to satisfy our curiosity? And now we’re doing exactly what Bach wanted,” he says, explaining how it all began.

The Search for the Ideal Choir 

Catalano had funding and, more or less, carte blanche within the Foundation. He also had music director Julian Wachner, former Director of Music at Trinity Church in New York, highly experienced in Bach’s vocal works. The challenge? There are very few boys’ choirs with suitable singers. 

Until they came across the Tölzer Knabenchor (Tölz Boys’ Choir), which was founded in 1956 and actually emerged from a scout group. 

This choir had another special connection to the Entwurff project. Its founder and long-time director, Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden (b. 1937), once told me in an interview about his student years (1956–59) under then Thomaskantor Kurt Thomas: “In Leipzig, I came to know the great works of Bach and others. I took part in recordings of the Magnificat, St. Matthew Passion, St. John Passion, and Christmas Oratorio with the Thomanerchor, and I saw that there was a choir of 90 or 100 singers. That was impressive, I admit. But I still thought: that can’t have been the original line-up! So I went to the city archive and looked at the lists and Bach’s petitions: he needed four singers instead of three. So clearly, it doesn’t add up—90 against 12 or 16: that’s off. And then I realized that among those three singers, one would also be the soloist singing the arias! So I thought: this would actually be a wonderful task: to rediscover and develop the technique and quality that must have existed back then. That’s really why I wanted to continue working with a boys’ choir.”

In this respect, it is indeed a particularly fortunate circumstance that the Concerto Vocale Foundation found this particular choir for its recording project, among all the many boys’ choirs in the world. And Julian Wachner, music director of the foundation, explains this fortunate circumstance with a simple aesthetic fact: “The sound of the boys singing this music is really like little tenors, with this kind of vitality. No strain; it’s just so precise and crystalline and colourful, and it also helps me realize what to do with the instruments, with the tempos, it’s a constant learning for me. So, the tradition and the colour of these voices: You just don’t get that anywhere else—certainly not in the Anglo-Saxon world. The sound is unbelievable!”

A Distinctive Vocal Aesthetic

Even among German boys’ choirs, the Tölzer stand out for their sound. They are one of the few “professional” boys’ choirs in Germany whose singers don’t live in boarding school. Their vocal training is based on Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden’s method of “opening up” the boy’s voice. Children’s voices sound “toneless” by nature, he explained in his 1992 book Ways of Voice Training, and “to avoid sounding dull, the voice must be made especially resonant.” Tölzer soloists – trained these days by Christian Fliegner (a former singer and soloist of the choir himself) as artistic director and Ursula Richter as head of the soloist department – therefore don’t have the bright yet thin tone common in many other boys’ choirs. Their voices are rounder, shinier, fuller. 

The project was launched on March 7 at Munich’s Himmelfahrtskirche, with a first recording session and inaugural concert. The choir, composed exclusively of singers from the choir, was accompanied by the baroque ensemble Concerto München and presented to a select audience—similar forces as described by Bach in his Entwurff. Peter Catalano, President of the Concerto Vocale Foundation, commented: “It was very enlightening. Here’s Julian Wachner, who’s conducted all of Bach’s vocal works, saying: ‘Hmm, I’m learning something new.’ There’s an aesthetic here—the instruments, the tuning, the boys’ voices, the soloists—that I think is unique, unparalleled!”

The cantatas BWV 8, 11, 51, and 78 were recorded in this first phase. This week, on June 21, a second concert will feature BWV 79, 178, and 198 (Trauerode). The concert will be broadcast live on our website, and will remain available for later listening till 28th of June.

A notable feature: The male voices are also drawn from the choir, with the exception of the tenor and bass solo parts, which have been entrusted to professional adult singers. But here again, the artistic team’s choice distances itself from the traditional canons of “Baroque” interpretation: no light, ethereal voices, often associated with Bach singers, but rather more robust, embodied timbres. “When you have really expressive, dynamic tenors and basses, you perceive the polyphonic lines much better, because the vocal colours are very clear. That’s why we chose singers accustomed to Mozart (their most recent roles include Don Giovanni, Papageno and Tamino). We felt they could each bring their own colour to their part, so that each voice would be immediately recognizable. That was our starting point.”

As Authentic as Possible?

So, is what Wachner is doing with the Tölzer Knabenchor as authentic as it gets? He laughs: 
“Not really, because we stop every eight bars to check intonation. And I don’t know what punishments were used in 1723 to train singers: we know boys were beaten when they sang wrong notes… So we’ll never know what authenticity is, unless we invent a time machine.” Still, the line-up comes very close to what Bach envisioned. Even the precise orchestral requirements detailed in the Entwurff are faithfully followed by Concerto München under Johannes Berger. As heard in the March launch concert, the result is technically, musically, and sonically outstanding—and full of joy, as Berger, who also plays the organ, notes: “It’s a fascinating collaboration. The boys are playful and mischievous. It takes me back to my own youth—but mixed with admiration for the level of professionalism and discipline they already have at that age, when it counts.”

For the Concerto Vocale Foundation, the project is not simply an artistic indulgence. The foundation’s broader mission is to give young people in the U.S. (especially boys) a sense of direction in a time of growing political and family instability. Wachner suggests the Tölzer Knabenchor could serve as a model for new choirs in the U.S.: “The foundation wants to do something for childhood and the development of boys into men, whether in scouting or boys’ choirs. We’ve been talking about maybe starting a boys’ choir in cities that don’t have one at all.” Not all of Bach’s cantatas will be recorded; there’s neither time nor money for that, Catalano admits. But several are still on the wish list for coming years, including alto solo cantatas and the Actus Tragicus. Selections will depend on which soloists are currently available in the choir—or whose voices are about to change. Wachner is clearly thrilled with the collaboration: “I can communicate with them on a highly professional, even academic level. They hear dissonances, we analyze things… I really can’t complain—which is pretty rare for me!”

A Promising Debut Concert

This was already apparent in the opening concert, which also served as a recording session: the young singers’ three-hour discipline was impressive, their choral singing impeccable. The soloists sometimes struggled to reach the level of perfection demanded by these highly complex arias (even for adult singers) but the result was utterly convincing. The chosen formation worked admirably, and we look forward to the release of the recordings as well as the next concert, broadcast live here.

And what did the boys think? Work or fun? Et qu’en ont pensé les jeunes chanteurs ? Travail ou plaisir ?Jakob, 10, says both: “Sometimes it feels like work, because you really have to give a lot. But during the concert, it’s actually a lot of fun.” Raphael, 15, finds Bach “pretty cool”: “That he wrote such different stuff. Really sad music, really happy music, sacred and secular. I like the variety.” And what stumps many singers is exactly what draws in Benedikt, 12: “Bach has a lot of coloratura. You can divide them into little sections and each one has its own rhythm; I love that!”

Cantatas BWV 8, 11, 51, and 78 were recorded in March 2025. On June 21, BWV 79, 178, and 198 will follow. The second recording series concludes with a public concert on June 21, 2025 at the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche in the Munich Residenz.