The Uncensored Folk Music of Austria – Various Artists / Arhoolie CD-454/5

Description

CD 454 Two CD set.

Why would a CD called the Folk Music of Austria, with a cover photo of three older Austrian gentlemen playing a clarinet, an accordion and a hammered dulcimer have a Parental Advisory – Explicit Content sticker on it? Why is it called the Uncensored Folk Music of Austria? What’s going on here?

The Uncensored Folk Music of Austria is 2 CD set of authentic regional music, recorded between 1967 and 1998 by Arhoolie Records founder Chris Strachwitz and his friend Johnny Parth. Sixty-one songs recorded in almost every province in Austria – many released here for the first time! These location recordings bring you authentic amateurs and semi-professionals in various vocal combinations, many accompanied by unique instruments: hammered dulcimer, zither, barrel organ, jaw harp, cembalo, tarogato, brick xylophone (yes – brick xylophone), grenade glockenspiel (yes – grenade glockenspiel), flute, clarinet, accordion, fiddle, guitar and more.

And yes, several of the songs are of a very explicit sexual nature. The booklet contains extensive notes, and embedded in the CD (accessible via computer) are all of the lyrics transcribed in their original Austrian dialect, and translated into High German and English. So you can read what it’s all about.

Tracks:

REVIEW

“It is astonishing that the CD compendium with the noteworthy title Uncensored Folk Music of Austria remains only negligibly recognized in Austria five years after its publication. In fact, the two people responsible for this achievement merit high praise for their work. Johnny Parth (born in Vienna in 1930) and Chris Strachwitz (born in Gross Reichenau, Lower Schlesia, in 1931, now American) are experts in the area of blues music. On his Austrian record labels, Roots and Document Records, Parth manages to release CDs of all available American blues recordings from the turn of the century to the Second World War. Strachwitz founded the US company, Arhoolie Records, under which label this double CD was released…

But what does the label ‘uncensored’ actually mean in connection with ‘folk music’? And what in heaven’s name do two blues lovers have to do with Austrian folk music? A note next to the track listing in the CD booklet provides the answer to the first question: ‘Items with an asterisk (*) are uncensored songs, mostly Gstanzel, which contain explicit sexual language probably not suitable for young ears and eyes!’ And the introductory remarks by the publisher in he CD booklet reveal what motivated two blues collectors to hunt down folk music in tiny Austrian villages, high, isolated alpine pastures, and remote alpine valleys, as well as the metropolis of Vienna: they were trying to discover ‘something like Austrian blues.’

This unique vantage point – viewing Austria’s traditional music from outside, through the eyes of two lovers of American blues – is immensely refreshing but additionally evidences profound expertise. Both perceived rather early on that the ‘wild,’ informal, generally orally handed-down folk music of Austria (which Strachwitz refers to as ‘authentic’) stands in stark contrast to the well-ordered, cultivated classics of folk-music clubs and choirs frequently performed as concert pieces (which Strachwitz assigns to the sphere of ‘purely traditional’ folk music)…He and Parth were instead interested in recording what they understood to be ‘functional music,’ in its ‘usual environment’ rather than the studio…

The recordings of Viennese songs stir enthusiasm for now-deceased singing personalities such as Trude Mally, Maly Nagl, and Heini Bruic, who scintillate in their striking individuality and flawless implementation of the Viennese singing style, with its strong vibrato and footloose rhythms…There are other gems in the collection: music for Jew’s harp; yodelling by Anna Gratz of Salzburg; songs performed in a rustic hut on a high alpine pasture in Styria by Fefi and Josef Eibisberger; the ‘barrel organ’ music of Viennese street musician Franz Radosta; and, above all else, the music composed for a homemade ‘brick xylophone’ by folk musician Karl Scherrer of Lower Austria. Thanks to the comprehensive accompanying documentation by Viennese folk music researcher Ernst Weber, the recordings are illuminated as the unique pieces they are. Strachwitz and Parth’s collection is by no means a complete, all-includive anthology, and that was never the intention. All the same, it is bursting with instructive examples of the various genres of Austrian folk music…Most importantly, it awakens a craving for still more ‘uncensored folk music of Austria.’ – Thomas Nussbaumer, 2014 Yearbook for Traditional Music