Proceedings Da Conferência

Music and shared imaginaries: nationalisms, communities, and choral singing Proceedings Edição: edições Ex-Libris ® (chancela Sítio do Livro) Título: Music and shared imaginaries: nationalisms, communities, and choral singing – Proceedings Editoras: Maria do Rosário Pestana e Helena Marinho Capa: Álvaro Sousa Paginação: Sítio do Livro 1.ª Edição Lisboa, Novembro de 2014 ISBN: 978-989-8714-41-1 Depósito legal: 393079/15 © Maria do Rosário Pestana e Helena Marinho PUBLICAÇÃO E COMERCIALIZAÇÃO: Rua da Assunção, n.º 42, 5.º Piso, Sala 35 1100-044 Lisboa www.sitiodolivro.pt Maria do Rosário Pestana Helena Marinho Editoras Music and shared imaginaries: nationalisms, communities, and choral singing Proceedings YODEL – LE-HI – HOO: IGNAZ MOSCHELES AND THE RAINER FAmily: AN UNEXPECTED MUSICAL AND SOCIAL TRIP BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN BIEDMERMEIER AND AMERICAN COUNtry FOLK MUSIC Alice Fumero1 K.I.T.E. [email protected] Abstract: What unites, in 1828, a pianist-composer of international fame like Mosche- les to the Tyrolese Rainer Family, a choral group composed by four men and one woman, all wearing traditional costumes? Yodel, the traditional chant from South Tirol and Austrian Regions. The Twelve Favorite Songs edition (yodel-songs sung by The Rainer Family, arranged for piano by Ignaz Moscheles) is proof as to how these melodies - with a strong Alpine identity - would represent a repertoire of “public domain”, part of which the rising bourgeoisie embraced, and would contribute to the “Bied- mermeier” spirit and identity. An identity community that reached the “New World” through immigrants, who were carrying yodel books in their luggage, and through The Rainer Family as well, on tour through the USA. In the USA, these melodies were 1 Alice Fumero graduated in Musicology at University of Pavia (Cremona) in 2003 and special- ised in “Art & Culture Management” at Master tsm in Rovereto. In 2006, she founded and covered the role of Art Director, “K.I.T.E.”, an Association with the aim to promoting different kinds of events including seminars, music concertos and theatre performances. She teaches music history in several associations and private schools. 7 assimilated as cultural heritage, and provided the basis for a new social and musical identity: Country Music. Keywords: The Rainer Family; Yodel Chant; Bourgeois class; “Biedermeier” spirit; Folk Music A copy of the collection Twelve Favorite Songs Sung by the Tyrolese Family Rainer with English & German Words, arranged with an accompaniment for the piano forte by Ignaz Moscheles is preserved in the Mountain Museum of Turin. It is probably one of many adaptations printed during the 19th century. It includes twelve vocal melodies of the Austrian folk tradition, but with an instrumental accompaniment. Surprisingly, it was published by the English editor I. Willis & Co, and was launched on the British market by a famous composer like Moscheles. But, often, there are extraordinary stories hidden inside the scores. Stories that are lost due to many reasons and forgotten over time, but, once rediscovered, they can reveal much about the unique power of music to overcome geographical, style or epoch limita- tions. The Rainer Family’s story, as The Tyrolese Minstrels (the first “mountain fam- ilies” who travelled around Europe and the USA singing traditional tunes) is one of these stories, represented through the Twelve Favorite Songs collection. It is not sim- ple to find biographical information about this group: there are no entries in several music and musicians dictionaries, and there are no historical or recent monographs2 on the subject3; The only article about their musical activities in the USA dates back to 1946, in the Quarterly Music Review, by Hans Nathan; the preface to the com- plete Tyrolese Melodies edition in 3 volumes4, written by William Ball, contains a short biography of the Rainers, mainly told in their own words. But the life and music of the Rainers have deeply contributed to the birth and development of a musical vogue, crossing both style and social class. The Rainer family group included four brothers and one sister - Mary, Felix, Anton, Joseph and Franz Rainer. They were born in Fugen, a small village in the Zillerth Valley, in Tyrol. Tyrol (called in the past Terra inter montes - Land in the 2 In the early summer of 1841 a 200-page book was published by a Boston press, entitled The Tyrolese Minstrel or the Romance of Every Day “by a Lady”. It was a blend of fact and fiction. 3 A forthcoming book about the Rainers by Sandra Hupfauf will appear in 2015. 4 All three volumes (that present songs for four voices and piano accompaniment) are available at the Boston Public Library. The first volume collects the Twelve Favorite Songs. 8 mountains) is a region straddling the eastern Alps between Austria and Italy. In the 19th century, like today, Tyrol was seen as an uncontaminated corner of nature, where man has settled down and protected a fairy-tale-like setting. The landscape descrip- tion is important in order to understand the Rainers’ music: their melodies are strong- ly influenced by rural nature, wildlife and outdoor activities; we would not be able to evaluate their peculiarities without considering the geographical and cultural envi- ronment where they lived. For these reasons, they were also known as the “Songsters of Nature”. The five brothers, children of a cattle owner, grew up listening to popu- lar pastoral tunes, and began to sing in front of the door of their cottage, attracting friends and neighbors “with their sweetly-accordant voices, their cheerful national melodies, delighting their unsophisticated hearers with the harmonious stores they had acquired” (Moscheles 1827-29, 1). Count Dohnof, who lived nearby, recognized the Rainers’ talent first and sponsored them to leave Tyrol and to perform their extraordinary and unique music throughout Europe. So, in the fall of 1824, the Rainers departed5 and travelled through Bavaria, Saxony, Prussia, Poland and Russia, performing their songs and dancing. Then, in 1825, the Russian Emperor Alexander, enraptured by the Tyrolese melodies, sponsored a second and third (1826) tour. On one hand they performed at courts in front of nobles and kings, and, on the other, they performed public shows in the streets and in different venues6. In May 1827, thanks to the recommendations of the English Earl Stanhope, the Rainers travelled to London. The Rainers could not read notes and they had never studied music7, but they attracted Ignaz Moscheles’ attention. Moscheles, composer and performer, a friend of Beethoven and Mendel- sohn, was known as one of the most important contemporary composers and he was considered an influential exponent of music life in London. The first public Rainer Concert at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly was sponsored by him. The Rainers were requested for private parties by royals and by bourgeois listeners, who crowded theatres every day “in spite of the moderate entrance fee” (Moscheles 1873, 142). What made their performances so special? Surely, their traditional clothes “with curious round hats, adorned with flowers and feathers, and the men with short green jackets, like those of postilions, striped black vests, white cotton stockings and short ankle boots” (The London Literary Gazette, June 2, 1827) gave a picturesque and charming image of them on the stage. But the Tyrolese melodies were the real secret 5 Felix Rainer told us that they “had journeyed on foot and with us in each bundle with our clothes, entirely made by our own hand” (Ball 1827-29, 3). 6 Their first appearance on Theatre stage was at the Theatre of the Court in Baden (1824). 7 Felix, the elder brother, had some musical knowledge. 9 of the Rainers’ success. Wherever they were sung, they could evoke the wide vistas of the Alps and the pastoral life: There is a charm also in the simplicity and grace of the tunes, and the very peculiar inflex- ions which mark them as belonging to the people of a wild and pastoral country. They lose indeed much of their effect in the atmosphere of the concert and hall room: but in London we must put up with a great deal of the artificial, and fancy (if we can) the basin in the Green Park to be the Lake of Zurich: Constitution Hill, Montblac; and the water-carts in Piccadilly the arrow Rhone (The London Literary Gazette, June 2, 1827). The Alpine songs are folk tunes for one or more voices a cappella (like glee style), without instrumental accompaniment8, partly improvised. Their manner of singing is at once remarkable and pleasing; and to those who have never heard the chant of the Tyrolese in their native land, cannot fail to be a source of amusement and gratification. They sang ten or twelve of their national songs or airs, in the way of quin- tets or glees: and occasionally one or more of the voice imitated an instrumental accompaniment of flute or horn, and had an uncommon effect. One of the brothers executed a solo, which it is impossible to describe; the modulation were neither singing, nor whistling, nor howling, but something of all commingled, which suggested to our minds the idea of savage howl reduced to melody (The London Literary Gazette, June 2, 1827). What were these improvised wordless vocal sections - “impossible to describe” – incorporated into verse arias? Yodel. The word “yodel” sounds like jodel, which de- rives from the Latin word jubilare - to shout with joy. Since its origin, yodeling was linked to mountain life9: it was functionally related to traditional rituals, customs and work. For instance, yodel was cattle calling (Viehlockler), or prayer calling (Betruf), or Alpine blessing. Then the primary form became a kind of male-voice part song for quartet or quintet.

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