A Tribute to Vienna: Spanish Riding School and Vienna Boys Choir

Online, March 25, 2014 (Newswire.com) - In 1498 the Emperor Maximilian I moved his court from Innsbruck to Vienna and issued the foundation charter for the Vienna Boys Choir. Today it still maintains this imperial tradition. Coupled with The Spanish Riding School, the world's oldest, it is the only riding institution where the classic equestrian skills (haute ecole) has been preserved and is practiced in its traditional form.

The world-famous Spanish Riding School and its Lipizzaner stallions is the oldest and the only riding institution where the Lipizzaner breed of horse exhibits movements of classical dressage. The Vienna Boys Choir in 1918 changed from its imperial uniform to a blue and white sailor suit and was changed it into a private institution in 1924. It has given performances in famous concert halls all around the world.

The Spanish Riding School hold gala performances in its baroque riding school, where both rider and horse take many years to perfect the precision of movement in total balance. The boys' choir performs highly varied choral compositions without instrumental accompaniment.

The Lipizzaners of the Spanish Riding School, with origins dating back to the late sixteenth century, are the oldest cultural horse breed in Europe. Breeding is very selective and only stallions that prove themselves to be of the best quality are accepted following arduous performance testing.

The horses have hundreds of years of breeding from southern European and Arabian bloodlines and only at the age of five does work under the saddle begin. Their movements are gracious and the horses have a supple gait and high knee action so as to perform the "airs above the ground" jumps.

The Vienna Boys Choir, Austria's singing ambassadors, consists of around a hundred choristers aged between ten and fourteen and there are four touring choirs, separated into Bruckner, Haydn, Mozart and Schubert, and perform around three hundred concerts a year.