Musikkapelle Innervillgraten Musique des marches processionnelles en Autriche - COL20480

This album is an ethnomusicological document of rare value: because who among all those urban dwellers would even begin to imagine that in a small East Tyrolean village, still to this day musicians turn out in their dozens whenever a procession is scheduled, to march across pastures and fields, playing their brass and woodwind instruments and beating their drums? The earliest evidence of “music for walking at a solemn pace” in Southern Germany, Austria and South Tyrol dates back to the second half of the 19th century; as a rule, a procession march is centered around a popular hymn (as the titles indicate). The Musikkapelle Innervillgraten, after their widely acclaimed compilation of funeral marches (“Nachklänge”, col legno WWE 20429) released ten years ago, now present a recording that documents their repertoire of this form of “utility music” – which also owes much to two local musical directors, Josef Steidl the Elder and the Younger respectively, who between them guided the affairs of the brass band in this high alpine valley for more than eight decades. So – open your ears to music that, however distant it may appear, is still capable of awakening our collective memory of images.