TEGERNSEER ALPENQUINTETT — Die Schonsten Jodler der Berge (Koche)
The Jodlerlieder, brass band music, accordion groups and other popular music of the European Alps has suffered badly from a tourist image. But the mountain styles of southern Germany , Austria and Switzerland are still strong (a surprisingly large number of these groups play only or largely their own compositions) and strongly regional. Even at their most commercial (Alpo, so to speak), they have a strong regional flavor. At their best they can, in a light-hearted sort of way, be wonderful, even though it’s an idiom without an improvising tradition (at least till after the paying customers have gone home).
Aside from its intrinsic charm, and its interest as one of the stronger remaining local popular traditions in western Europe, this music is a descendant of the idioms said to lie at the basis of a strong local US idiom, the accordion conjunto music of Hispanic Texas.
