St. Thomas School, Leipzig

St. Thomas School of Leipzig
*Thomasschule zu Leipzig*

*Schola Thomana Lipsiensis*
St. Thomas School of Leipzig; Thomasschule zu Leipzig; Schola Thomana Lipsiensis
Location
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	Hillerstraße 7 ; 04109 Leipzig; Saxony; Germany
Coordinates	[ ⚑ ] : 51°20′13″N 12°21′36″E / 51.33694°N 12.36°E
Information
Type	Public Boarding School
Religious affiliation(s)	Lutheran. (From 1212 to 1539 Catholic; Lutheran since the Protestant Reformation)
Patron saint(s)	Thomas the Apostle
Established	1212; 812 years ago
Founder	Augustinians
Superintendent	Burgomaster Prof. Dr. phil. Thomas Fabian (University of Applied Sciences), Alderman for Youth, Social, Health and School
Principal	Kathleen C. Kormann
Chaplain	Christian Wolff (theologian) (de)
Staff	67
Grades	5 to 12
Gender	coed, Boys' choir
Age	10 to 18
Number of students	485
Language	German
Classrooms	40
Campus	Forum Thomanum
Campus type	Urban
Colour(s)	; Green and white
Newspaper	Kasten Journal
Graduates (2007)	87
Alumni	Old Thomaner
Alumni	Thomanerbund
Chair	Christoph M. Haufe
Choir	Thomanerchor
Cantor	Andreas Reize
Website	thomasschule.de

Short description: Public boarding school in Saxony, Germany

St. Thomas School, Leipzig (German: Thomasschule zu Leipzig; Latin: Schola Thomana Lipsiensis) is a co-educational and public boarding school in Leipzig, Saxony, Germany . It was founded by the Augustinians in 1212 and is one of the oldest schools in the world.

St. Thomas is known for its art, language and music education. Johann Sebastian Bach held the position of Thomaskantor from 1723 until his death in 1750. His responsibilities included providing young musicians for church services in Leipzig. The Humanistic Gymnasium has a very long list of distinguished former students, including Richard Wagner (1813–1883) and many members of the Bach family, including Johann Sebastian Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788).

From the 800-Year Anniversary Celebration in 2012 the Thomanerchor and St. Thomas School has been part of Forum Thomanum, an internationally oriented educational campus.

History

St. Thomas School was founded in 1212 by Margrave Dietrich von Meißen (1162–1221) making it among the oldest schools in Europe. It was run as schola pauperum, meaning a free school intended to benefit the poor, by the Canons Regular of St. Augustine. The St. Thomas Church was founded with the school. The St. Thomas School is first mentioned in documents dating to 1254.

In 1539 the city of Leipzig took over ownership of the school. All members (Thomaner) of the boys choir (Thomanerchor) attend the school along with other pupils. The Thomaner live in the school's own boarding school, Thomasalumnat.

The school's first building was in the present courtyard of the St. Thomas Church. In 1553 an outbuilding was built there. During Johann Sebastian Bach's time as Thomaskantor these buildings were extended; in 1829 they were reconstructed. In 1877 a new building was erected in the Schreberstraße to meet a shortage of space. In 1881 a new building for the boarding school was finished.

The school was used as a barracks by a Freikorps unit during the Kapp Putsch. The staff had little sympathy for Friedrich Ebert's government.^[1]

During the Nazi era the school continued its normal curricula. The school endured the bombings of the night of 3 December 1943 with only the gym and the buildings across from the boarding school being destroyed. The then-rector, Günther Ramin, decided to move the choir boys to the Königlich Sächsische Fürsten- und Landesschule Sankt Augustin school in Grimma. Because of this, and because most of the older students were enlisted, the University of Leipzig was allowed to use the school's building for its own purposes. The rector's decision to move the choir boys was proved right during the bombings of 20 February 1944 when the school's buildings were destroyed. After that, the remaining pupils attended 41. Volksschule on the Hillerstraße. At some stage, the choir boys rejoined these pupils at Hillerstraße.

In 1973 the school moved into a new building in the Pestalozzistraße (now Telemannstraße), but the boarding school remained in the Hillerstraße. The new communist regime in East Germany tried to make an exemplar atheist school out of St. Thomas school, but the church's influence was immense.^{[citation needed]}

After the German reunification in 1990 the pupil's numbers increased. Since 2008 the school offers its students mathematics, natural sciences, music, and linguistic courses.

In September 2000 the school moved into the restored original building on the Hillerstraße. In 2008, there were 485 pupils and 67 teachers. Prior to 1973, all the Thomaskantors were also teachers at the school and the president of the choir was also the school's rector. Since 1973 those roles have been separated.

Foreign languages

Cultivating classical languages is an old tradition at St. Thomas School. All students study Latin as their first or second foreign language, including the Qualification in Latin (Latinum). Combined with the modern language English the pupils learn fundamental foreign language skills. Although there are offered advanced courses (Leistungskurse) in those subjects. Interested students are welcome to take the First Certificate in English (FCE). The tradition of the school and its roots in European culture are the motive for providing Ancient Greek classes from 8th grade as well as a Qualification in Greek (Graecum). Also St. Thomas offers Romance languages, like French and Italian.

Student exchange programs and stays in Europe and in Anglo-America are possible.

Notable alumni

Carl Friedrich Abel – German composer and fine player on the viola da gamba, pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach
Franz Abt – German composer
Nicolaus von Amsdorf – German theologian and Protestant reformer
Johann August Apel – German writer and jurist
Armand Léon von Ardenne – German military writer and general, character in Effi Briest
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach – eldest son and pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach – German musician and composer, second son of Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Christian Bach – composer of the Classical era, tenth son of Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach – ninth son of Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Gottfried Bernhard Bach – fourth son of Johann Sebastian Bach
Karl Baedeker – German physicist
Fritz Beblo – German city planner, architect and painter
Christian Daniel Beck – German philologist, historian, theologian and antiquarian
Oskar Becker – German philosopher, logician and mathematician
Roderich Benedix – German dramatist and librettist
Theodor Bergk – German philologist
Otto Julius Bierbaum – German writer
Georg Christoph Biller – German choral conductor
Christian Ludwig Boxberg – German composer and organist
Albert Brockhaus – German publisher and politician
Eduard Brücklmeier – German diplomat and resistance fighter against the Nazi régime
Conrad Bursian – German philologist and archaeologist
Johann Benedict Carpzov II – German Christian theologian and Hebraist
Carl Gustav Carus – German physiologist and painter
Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld – German painter
Walter Cramer – German businessman and a member of the failed July 20 Plot
Karl Wilhelm Dindorf – German classical scholar
Max Dieckmann – German physicist
Christoph von Dohnányi – German conductor
Klaus von Dohnanyi – German politician
Georg Dohrn – German conductor
Axel Eggebrecht – German journalist and writer
Theodor Wilhelm Engelmann – German botanist, physiologist and microbiologist
Georg Fabricius – German poet, historian and archaeologist
Johann Friedrich Fasch – German composer
Paul Fleming – German poet
Arnold Gehlen – an influential conservative German philosopher and sociologist
Reinhard Goerdeler – German accountant and founder of KPMG
Johann Gottlieb Görner – German composer and organist, pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Christoph Graupner – German harpsichordist and composer of high Baroque music
Andreas Gruentzig – German cardiologist
Karl Heine – lawyer and a major entrepreneur and industrial pioneer
Thomas Theodor Heine – German painter and illustrator
Johann David Heinichen – German Baroque composer and music theorist, Kapellmeister to the Royal Polish and Electoral Saxon Court in Dresden
Karl Heinrich Heydenreich – German philosopher and poet
Rudolf Hildebrand – Germanist
Karl von Hochmuth – Russian General
Otto Hoetzsch – German academic and politician
Reinhard Keiser – popular German opera composer, one time Kapellmeister of the Hamburg Opera and successor to Johann Mattheson as Cantor (church) of Hamburg Cathedral
Johann Friedrich Kind – German dramatist
Johann Ludwig Krebs – Rococo and Classical period musician and composer, pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach and son of Johann Tobias Krebs, another Bach pupil (during his tenure at Weimar)
Sebastian Krumbiegel – German singer and musician
Victor Lange – German-born US-American Germanist at Princeton University
Gottfried Leibniz – German mathematician and philosopher
Justus Hermann Lipsius – German classical scholar
Christian Gustav Adolph Mayer – German mathematician
Erhard Mauersberger – German choral conductor, 14th Cantor of the Thomaskirche zu Leipzig after Johann Sebastian Bach, brother of Rudolf Mauersberger (the composer, conductor, and Cantor of the Kreuzkirche Dresden)
Felix Moscheles – English painter, peace activist and advocate of Esperanto
Paul Julius Möbius – German neurologist
Georg Österreich – German Baroque composer
Carl Adam Petri – German mathematician and computer scientist
Eduard Friedrich Poeppig – German botanist, zoologist and explorer
Nikolaus Pevsner – German-born British scholar of history of art at Cambridge and Oxford University
Johann Georg Pisendel – German Baroque musician, violinist and composer
Die Prinzen – German music group
Günther Ramin – influential German organist, conductor, composer, pedagogue, and 12th Thomaskantor after Bach
Carl Gottlieb Reissiger – German Kapellmeister and composer
Martin Rinkart – German clergyman and hymnist
Johann Friedrich Rochlitz – German playwright, musicologist, art and music critic
Johann Theodor Roemhildt – German Baroque composer
Johann Rosenmüller – German Baroque composer
Friedrich Ruge – Vice Admiral of the German Navy
Ernest Sauter – German composer
Daniel Gottlob Moritz Schreber – German physician and university teacher
Johann Andreas Schubert – German general engineer and designer
Johann Gottfried Stallbaum – German classical scholar
David Timm (born 1969) – German pianist, organist, choral conductor and jazz musician
Karl Wilhelm Valentiner – German astronomer
Eduard Vogel – German explorer in Central Africa
Richard Wagner – German composer, conductor, music theorist and essayist
Jörg-Peter Weigle – German professor of choir direction
Friedrich Wieck – German piano and voice teacher, teacher of Robert Schumann, and father of Clara Schumann
Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau – German Baroque musician and composer, teacher of George Frideric Handel
Carl Friedrich Zöllner – German composer and choir director

Notable former teachers

Johann Sebastian Bach – monumental German Baroque composer and organist
Karl Ferdinand Braun – German inventor, physicist and Nobel Prize laureate
Sethus Calvisius – German music theorist, composer, chronologer, astronomer and teacher of the late Renaissance
Otto Crusius – German classical scholar
Johann August Ernesti – German theologian and philologist
Georg Fabricius – German poet, historian and archaeologist
Johann Matthias Gesner – German classical scholar and schoolmaster, an ardent enthusiast of Johann Sebastian Bach
Moritz Hauptmann – German composer and writer, 6th Cantor (church) of the Thomanerchor after Bach
Sebastian Knüpfer – German Baroque composer, 3rd Thomaskantor before Bach
Johann Kuhnau – German Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist, immediate predecessor as Thomaskantor before Bach
August Leskien – German linguist
Johann Adam Hiller – German Classical and Romantic composer, conductor and writer on music, 3rd Thomaskantor after Bach, first Kapellmeister of the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig
Rudolf Hildebrand – Germanist
Johann Rosenmüller – German Baroque composer
Günther Ramin – influential German organist, conductor, composer, pedagogue, and 12th Thomaskantor after Bach
Georg Rhau – German publisher and composer, first Thomaskantor after church became Protestant, led the Thomanerchor in the opening Mass of the Leipzig Debate, published last known Lutheran Hymnbook during Martin Luther's lifetime
Ernst Richter – German musical theorist, 8th Thomaskantor after Bach and the immediate predecessor to the post of Wilhelm Rust
Wilhelm Rust – German musicologist, conductor, and composer, 9th Thomaskantor after Bach
Johann Hermann Schein – German composer and hymnist of the early Baroque era
Johann Gottfried Schicht – German composer and conductor, 5th Thomaskantor after Bach
Karl Straube – German church musician, organist, choral conductor, and teacher, 11th Thomaskantor after Bach, a friend and champion of Max Reger, instructor at the Leipzig Conservatory, and one of the teachers of Karl Richter (conductor); succeeded to the post of Thomaskantor by Günther Ramin
Jakob Thomasius – German academic philosopher and jurist
Christian Theodor Weinlig – German music teacher, composer and choir conductor
Ernst Windisch – German scholar and celticist
Gustav Ernst Schreck – German composer, music teacher, choirmaster, 1983 Thomaskantor

References

↑ Games, Stephen (2010) (in en). Pevsner: The Early Life: Germany and Art. A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-4411-4386-0. https://books.google.com/books?id=A7hOnJMqEAsC&dq=%22Kapp+Putsch%22+Dresden&pg=PA67.

"Thomasschule zu Leipzig (Translated by Google)". Thomasschule/Google. https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.thomasschule.de/&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DThomasschule%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26rls%3DHPAB,HPAB:2006-42,HPAB:en.

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Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St. Thomas School, Leipzig. Read more

[Games-1] Games, Stephen (2010) (in en). Pevsner: The Early Life: Germany and Art. A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-4411-4386-0. https://books.google.com/books?id=A7hOnJMqEAsC&dq=%22Kapp+Putsch%22+Dresden&pg=PA67.

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