Chamberjuuz

Although the three instrumentalists around singer Barbara Berger play the violin, dulcimer and double bass, they do not want to be a string band and certainly not a folk band. And yet the Silberen ensemble, named after the silver-bright rock on the Pragel Pass in the canton of Schwyz, can be classified as traditional music. The 16 tracks of the new album Flower stone with three exceptions - the compositions Randal by Barbara Berger, Forest entrance by Christian Schmid and Annebäbi in the Säli by Hannes Boss, the incidental music for Beat Sterchi's play of the same name - can be traced back to old Swiss melodies. They are taken from folk song collections or recordings and have been alienated and renewed in their own creative accompaniments on the aforementioned instruments, but also with harmonium, hanottere (Emmental neck zither), guitalele (small guitar the size of a ukulele) and percussion in unusual timbres and unnerving rhythms.

In extensive preparatory work, the yodeling teacher at the Bern Conservatory and her accompanists have familiarized themselves with the most important song collections in German-speaking Switzerland (Collection of Swiss=cuisine and folk songspublished by Johann Rudolf Wyss, Bern 1818; The folk song in Appenzellpublished by Alfred Tobler, Zurich 1903; In the Röseligarte, edited by Otto von Greyerz, 6 volumes Bern 1908-1925; What our fathers sangpublished by Alfred Leonz Gassmann, Basel 1961; Anderi songspublished by Urs Hostettler, Gümligen 1979, etc.) and the audio recording published by Hugo Zemp in 1979. Les Jüüzli du Muotatal studied.

Of particular interest among these searches are the Plötsche Mazurka from an unknown manuscript in private ownership and the soloistically sung Naturjuuz from Wolfgang Sichardt's monograph The alpine yodeler, Hahnefeld 1939.

The five musicians in black and white clothing and the design of the new CD from the Zytglogge publishing house, a gray disc with a silver edge and a white cover printed in black with a touch of sky blue, hint at the musical content: songs about a child murderer, a terminally ill woman and about homesickness; natural yodeling on mere syllables without word meaning and yet full of meaning.

Silberen is a folk music chamber ensemble that places high demands on its performers and listeners.