We didn’t invent singing!: This old contender beat us

Yodeling is part of Switzerland’s DNA – of course, isn’t it? Wrong, says Dieter Ringli. He teaches music history at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHDK) and explains: “Yodel is not a Swiss invention.” It only spread to us in the 20th century. It came before us: the Tyrols. Austrians of all people! Eternal rivals.

The book “Tirolerei in der Schweiz” shows: During the wars of liberation (1796-1814) against Napoleon (1769-1821), the Tyrols used it as an acoustic symbol for resistance. Later, local singer groups took him first to Vienna, to the Volksbühne stage and then to the world. Also in Switzerland. And it looked threatening. In the 19th century, people in this country complained of “Tyrolei”, which was becoming increasingly common. In individual highlands there were individual forms of singing with varying registers, today: “Entlebucher Jutz”, “Berner Naturjutz”, “Juiz” in Obwalden and Nidwalden, “Zäuerli” and “Ruggusserli” in Appenzell, and “Johlen” in Toggenburg ” . But nothing has a nationwide reputation.

An initiative in 1910 changed that: the founding of the Federal Yodelling Association. He pressed the song. It proclaimed “an original Swiss trait” and has since been popularized and marketed. The official founding invitation that “Weekend Switzerland” once spawned says: “True, original singers from mountain and valley should stick together and stay away from variety songs in all respects”, that is, “Tyrolean tubercle”.

spiritual national defense

The excerpt shows: The yelling association, yodel – these are an expression of Switzerland’s national identity. Just like the first federal singing festival in Basel in 1924. Added to this was moral national defense during the Second World War. The EJV went on the offensive and in 1943 published composer Robert Fellmann’s (1885–1951) first instructions for singing. From then on, it mainly formed the basis of clubs in Mittelland. The trend collapsed in the postwar period, and the ’68 generation and those who followed them found singing regressive.

Those days are over. “Yodel is experiencing a resurgence,” says music expert Ringli. Society in general discovered it. In Kiental, stressed people can escape everyday life by singing Qigong and singing “as one of the purest expressions of joy in life.” And as Ringli says, yodel courses in the city are always full. The townspeople were particularly interested in Naturjutz – shouting without text. A sign for the future, he thinks: “Yodel will likely stay with us.”