Beethoven Männerchor's Halle und Garten
German-Texan singing societies helped preserve German culture and language and strengthened community at a time when surviving on the frontier could be difficult. As German-Texan men returned to San Antonio from fighting in the Civil War, Beethoven Maennerchor was founded in 1867 – an offshoot of an earlier singing society, Maennergesang-Verein. Poet and musician Sidney Lanier visited a practice that first year, exclaiming that “Great pipes were all afire… they all swung into such a noble old full-voice lied [song] that imperious tears rushed to my eyes.”
The society’s first performance space was built in 1894 on South Alamo Street, but it was later destroyed in a fire. The pipes of the Maennerchor – which now features choirs for women and children – are still afire today in their dozens of performances every year, performed in their current venue on Pereida Street.