Wind Instruments (I) – Swiss Folk Instruments

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Remember when, as children, you would try to blow tunes on a blade of grass or a leaf squeezed between your fingers?

This content was published on December 2, 2011 - 18:04

It was one of the simplest and most primitive ways of making music. But there are folk musicians in Switzerland still practising this art today. This edition traces the role of wind instruments of all forms in Swiss folk music. From the most elementary of instruments, an ivy leaf, to virtuoso woodwinds in conventional country bands.

Musical content:

1. Ivy leaf (folk tune)
(Trad.)
Performed by Justus Waldis

2. Pear leaf (folk tune)
(Trad.)
Performed by Agatha Loher

3. May pipe (Muotathal folk tune)
(Trad.)
Performed by Joseph Felchlin

4. Bone pipe
Paleolithic Period
Performed by Raymond Meylan

5. Bone flute
Bronze Age
Performed by Raymond Meylan

6. Bone pipe
Roman Period
Performed by Raymond Meylan

7. Marble fife (goat call)
(Trad.)
Perfomed by Tista Murk

8. Marble fife (folk tune)
(Trad.)
Perfomed by Tista Murk

9. Schwäbelpfyffe – Swabian fife, with accordion (Am Gössi Albert sinä)
(K. Geisser)
Performed by Alois Heinzer

10. Recorder with mouth organ (Gütterli Tanz – traditional dance)
Performed by the Buure Musig, Brunnen

11. Syrinx – panpipes (Fantasia su motivi brianzoli)
(Trad., arr. E. Spazzi)
Performed by Gruppo folcloristico di Cantù

12. Ocarina (March of the Langnau Cadets)
(Trad.)
Performed by Eduard Gerber

13. Piccolo flutes with drums (Landsgemeinde Assembly Call)
(Trad.)
Performed by the fifers and drummers of the Appenzell Ausserrhoden Landsgemeinde

14. Piccolo flutes (Gluggsi)
(E. and E. Grieder)
Performed by the fifers of the Basel Bebbi Clique

15. Natwärisch Pfyffe – Valaisan fife (Improvisation)
Performed by Jörg Abgottspon

16. Natwärisch Pfyffe – Valaisan fife with drums (D’Annemarie)
(Trad.)
Performed by Werner and Joseph Berchtold, Valaisan fifes; The Oberwalliser Drums (Rhone Section)

17. Clarinests with accordion, piano and bass (Ribary Family Schottisch)
(J. Ribary)
Performed by the Jost Ribary jr. Family Band

18. Various wind instruments (Julius im Schuss)
(Trad.)
Performed by the Bauernmusik Bürglen

Production information:

Musica Helvetica MH 57. Swiss Folk Instruments. Wind Instruments (I). Produced 1978 for SBC / SRI by Lance Tschannen.