A Mountain Horn

For some people the wonders of nature
are found in dramatic landscapes filled with
majestic mountains, spectacular waterfalls,
verdant valleys, and glistening glaciers.

But for a musician there is
an invisible soundscape to admire too.
It's a texture of sound created by natural elements
that make the mountain winds roar, the forest trees murmur,
the alpine pastures flutter, and the ice fields crack.
It's an awareness of a topography's resonance,
a sense of echos and sonorities formed
by gigantic walls of rock and vast carpets of turf.
It's the earth's concert stage.
And the best way for a musician
to appreciate this aural phenomena
is to join the ambient noise
with their own voice or instrument.

 

In this postcard a man
standing on an alpine hillside
does exactly that.

 

 

 Alphornbläser auf Frutt
~
Alphorn player at Frutt

 

 

The instrument is the alphorn, a long conical horn made of wood that is a European folk instrument common to the mountain people of the Alps. It's about 12 to 13 feet long (depending on whether it is in the key of F# or F), carved out of a softwood, and blown through a mouthpiece much like a bugle or horn. The physics of its sound limits an alphorn to a specific set of notes called overtones which give it a rudimentary scale of about 12-15 musical pitches. In September 2016 I featured myself playing one in The Wedding Alphorn. The wood gives it a mellifluous sound that is more akin to the human voice than to the strident qualities of brass horns and trumpets.

 

I acquired this picture postcard of a solitary alphornist as much for the note on the back as the folk musician on the front. It was sent using the Feldpost, or military postal service, to Pionier Hürlimann Ferdy on 24 October 1939. The writer used neat block letters that made translation very easy.

 

 

 

Wir sitzen wieder zusammen,

der Urlaub hat manchen befreit,

weil wir das Bier nicht verdammen,

sind alle zum, Saufen bereit!

Wir denken an die Clubkameraden

die unter der Fahne stehin,

Ihr wackeren Schweizer - Soldaten,

Ein Schluck auf ein Wiedersehen.

We sit together again,

as the holiday has freed some,

because we do not condemn the beer,

everyone is ready to drink!

We think of the club mates

who stand under the flag,

you brave Swiss soldiers,

a sip until we meet again.

The short verse is signed by about six people, all men and fellow soldiers I presume. The language is German but from the message we learn that they are Swiss. It is one of the curiosities of Europe that Switzerland has four national languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh, with German being the most common. 

What makes the note special is the date: 24-X-39 written below the address. Just a month earlier the Second Great War  burst upon the world when Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Since by October 1939, Hitler had already taken over Austria, the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, and now Poland, these Swiss soldiers understood the dire threat Germany posed to their country. Within three days the Swiss army had mobilized 430,000 combat troops and 210,000 support personnel, 10,000 of whom were women. During the war years when this alpine country was effectively surrounded by a hostile force, the Swiss government maintained its neutrality but still defended its border, eventually reaching a full force of 850,000. "Brave Swiss soldiers" was not just a sentimental phrase for these men.

 

In the caption the word "Frutt" translates from German as "fruit". But "Alphorn player on fruit" would be silly. It sounds like a breakfast cereal. I wondered if it might be a location in Switzerland, and like magic, Google Maps took me instantly to this place— Frutt, in the village of Kerns, which resides in the canton of Obwalden, Switzerland. In the center of this valley is a lake called Melchsee which lends its name to the mountain resort Melchsee-Frutt. The village is situated at 1,920 metres (6,300 ft) above sea level. The resort was established in 1936 when a gondola was constructed to take visitors up toward the higher peaks: Erzegg, Balmeregg and Bonistock are at 2150m, 2255m and 2160 meters, respectively.

 

One of the amazing features of Google Maps is finding thrilling 360° photos of exotic places. Here is one that I think was taken from a drone or balloon just above the Melchsee. As you rotate around you can see several places where the alphorn player might have stood, though I can't really be sure of his exact location.

* * *

* * *

In another coincidence I discovered a YouTube video
of an alphorn quartet playing a piece entitled
Der Frutt - Kühreihen.  
It was posted by Mike Maurer,
who is, I believe, the alphorn player on the right.

 

 

 The previous piece "Der Frutt - Kühreihen"
translates from German as "The Fruit - Rows of Cows."
Something is probably lost in my translation
but here's another alphorn quartet video
posted on YouTube by Dafydd Bullock
that might explain it.

  Innocent Alphorn Players attacked by Savage Cows  

Stay to the end for the vicious assault.

 

 

 

 

As the song says,
"the hills are alive with the sound of music."

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where some see the glacier as half-filled
and others as half-empty.