They belonged to the artisan and trading classes of the German towns, and regarded as their masters and the founders of their guild twelve poets of the Middle High German period, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, Konrad von Würzburg, Reinmar von Zweter, and Heinrich Frauenlob.
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Three times a year, at Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas, special festivals and singing competitions were instituted.
One such tune (Ton in Meistersinger terminology) by Hans Folz (c1437-1513) illustrates this:
Alexander has sung with companies in Buenos Aires, Vienna, Brussels, Canada, Copenhagen, Paris, Athens, Bayreuth (Beckmesser in Wieland Wagner's Die Meistersinger, 1963), Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart, Florence, Mexico City, Basel, Geneva, Zurich, Edinburgh, Glyndebourne, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Fort Worth, Hartford, etc.
After violin lessons at a young age he studied classical guitar in Stuttgart as well as orchestra conducting at the Meistersinger Academy in Nuremberg and in Vienna at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst (now Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien).
His recordings include Die Meistersinger (with Claire Watson, 1963), Die Frau ohne Schatten (1963), Siegfried (conducted by Herbert von Karajan, 1968–69), Ariadne auf Naxos (conducted by Karl Böhm, 1969) and, from Bayreuth, Parsifal (with Irene Dalis as Kundry, led by Hans Knappertsbusch, 1962) and Lohengrin (with Anja Silja and Astrid Varnay, 1962).
There are a number of recordings of Reining: her Arabella (Salzburg, 1947, under Karl Böhm), Daphne (Vienna, 1944, Böhm), Ariadne (Vienna, 1944, Böhm), Eva in Die Meistersinger (Vienna, 1937, Toscanini), Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier (Salzburg, 1949, George Szell; Salzburg, 1953, Clemens Krauss; Vienna, 1954 (Studio), Erich Kleiber; Vienna, 1955, Knappertsbusch) are all on disc.
He has appeared at the Gewandhaus, Leipzig, the Semperoper, Dresden, the Liederhalle, Stuttgart, the Salle Cortot, Paris, the Konzertsaal of the Meistersinger Conservatorium and Meistersingerhalle the Martha Kirche in Nuremberg and at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.
In the summer of 1963, the Heldentenor made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival as Kunz Vogelgesang in Wieland Wagner's new production of Die Meistersinger, with Anja Silja as Eva.