CD 6
Tyrolean Musical Treasures 5
Crèche from Axams, end of the 18th century
TheTyrolean Christmas Concert at the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum represents a new form of performing historic Christmas music by structuring it according to an underlying concept. The program idea is a midnight mass on Christmas Eve in a Tyrolean church in the ideal form it would have had around 1800. The content is the Christmas story told exclusively in Tyrolean Christmas music. Hence this CD is a Tyrolean crèche in sound. The central feature is a Christmas mass, redolent with atmosphere, composed by the Benedictine monk Martin Goller of Fiecht in 1787. Interspersed throughout this mass, which is in the classical style, are shepherds’ carols handed down by oral tradition and adapted in original fashion and beautiful sound by Father Martin to suit his ensemble in Fiecht. Further traditional folk elementsinthisperformanceare the carol about the Holy Family looking for an inn (“Wer klopfet an?” track 1) in the eastern Tyrolean tradition, a charming Christmas minuet from the Ausserfern region scored for Stubenmusik (traditional Alpine folk ensemble) with bowed string instruments, dulcimer and a “folk harp” (Volksharfe, track 2), and the intimate lullaby for the Christ Child (“Es wird scho glei dumpa”) from the Tyrolean lowlands with the original scoring sung by the Sternsinger (door-to- door carolers at Epiphany) of Hopfgarten in the Brixen valley (track 14).
Track 14, 4:51
Es wird schon glei dumpa
Sternsinger from Hopfgarten
about 1840