Eifel Music Festival
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The Eifel Music Festival (German: Eifeler Musikfest) is a church music festival that has been held every year since 1946 on the weekend after Pentecost at Steinfeld Abbey/Eifel. This makes it the oldest extant music festival in the Rhineland. Today, the county of Euskirchen is the responsible body in cooperation with the support association of Steinfeld Abbey.
In keeping with the spirit of the monastic venue, the Eifel Music Festival is a Catholic church music festival. The festival's High Mass (Festhochamt) cultivates the tradition of the missa solemnis, the church service accompanied ceremonially by choir and orchestra. The highlight of the music festival is an oratorial concert on Sunday afternoon, at which great works of church music from Monteverdi to Bruckner are performed. Since the late 1950s, in addition to the church music concerts, there has been a concert of chamber music on Saturday evening with a "secular" programme is staged at various locations within the great monastery complex. From time to time, the festival programme is supplemented by an organ concert with well-known organists playing Steinfeld's Balthasar König Organ on the Sunday afternoon.
Artists
Until 1963, the artistic direction was in the hands of Aachen Cathedral's director of music and founder, Professor Theodor Bernhard Rehmann (1895-1963). Conductors have included Wolfgang Sawallisch, Romanus Hubertus, Wolfgang Trommer and Hans Walter Kämpfel.