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Royal Victorian Liedertafel Collection
Documents, photographs, programs, scores and memorabilia, including records of several other Liedertafeln associated with, or amalgamated into the Royal Victorian Liedertafel.
Choral singing was a vibrant part of musical life in colonial and early 20th-century Melbourne. The Metropolitan and Melbourne (originally Melbourner Deutsche) Liedertafel—essentially German-influenced male-voice choirs—were among the largest and most influential and were run as private societies.
Concerts and venues varied: the choirs were highly social as well as musical. Conventional concerts, some also involving female choristers, alternated with men-only ‘smoke nights’, where audience and participants would smoke and drink at tables. There were occasional concerts by moonlight at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the zoo and even on paddle-steamers. Incoming and outgoing governors were routinely ‘serenaded’.
The two choirs amalgamated in 1905 to become the Royal Victorian Liedertafel.
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