WeXel. the music of a landscape, COMPA Vol. 22, Part 1

In 1904 growing awareness of the traditional music in the Hapsburg empire led to the commission "Österreichisches Volksliedunternehmen Austrian Traditional Music Company" with specialists of german, slave and roman tongue under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture and Teaching. A planned edition "Das Volkslied in Österreich Traditional Music in Austria" should consist of 30 volumes in german, 20 in slave and 10 in roman language, in total 60 volumes. The first volume was projected for the end of World War I, two to threee volumes should follow yearly at a price of 30 crowns max. A similar project was initiated by the Hungarian Empire. In 1918 the prototype "Das Volkslied in Österreich Traditional Song in Austria with selected secular as well as religious traditional music" was presented in Vienna. Yet history changed all publication plans. In 1951 Béla Bartk and Zoltn Kodly started "A critical edition of all Hungarian traditional music A magyar népzene tra" as CMPH (= Corpus Musicae Popularis Hungaricae). In 1993 Gerlinde Haid (1943 2012) and Walter Deutsch (*1923) initiated with "St. Pölten und Umgebung. Niederösterreich St. Pölten and its surroundings. Lower Austria" the first volume of COMPA (= Corpus Musicae Popularis Austriacae), "an encyclopedia of traditional Austrian music in a selected choice". In 2013 only 20 years later 21 volumes illuminate Austrian traditional music from the historical as well as the actual point of view, be it collections, genres or local scenes. The most recent volume COMPA 22 "WeXel. Die Musik einer Landschaft. Niederösterreich und Steiermark WeXel. The music of a landscape. Lower Austria and Styria" is dedicated to traditional music in the Wechsel region. Part 1 "Das Geistliche Lied The Religious Song" concentrates on the songs in the house of the deceased during the two-night corpse-watch at the bier. The bidding fare-well to the deceased in his own house and praying for his soul, the soul of his kin, his friends and those who will follow, is accompanied by many-strophed songs. First the compendium gives a short historical and geographical description of the Wechsel, a border region of the "Herzogthum Steyermark the Duchy of Styria" and "Österreich Austria". Contrary to the Semmering, the balcony of the Viennese, and Reichenau, the resort of the court, the Wechsel was the turnstile of the crown-lands. The main part consists of death-bed and burial traditions accompanied by the songs at the bier the "Leichhüatlieder". Burchard of Worms` ( 1025) condemnation of the corpse-watch as a "heathen cult" and song- sheets dating to the middle of the 17th century are the oldest documents. Classifications of their specific genres elucidate the origins of these multi-layered songs. Function and geographical range of the hand-written or printed texts as well as melodic transcriptions are added. The compilation offers a fund of almost unknown variations of well-known melodic types. Special attention is given to these melodies, since they document an impressive musicality of the mainly female singers in the Wechsel region. Words and music of these songs were linked with pious traditions as well as religious acts. Losing their clerical ties these songs stayed alive in the corpse-watch until around 1965, when law obliged the population to have the deceased moved to the newly-constructed death- chapels. Yet until 2013 echoes of these songs still resounded in the voices of elder and younger singers. 192 songs of different categories (ballad, danse macabre song, evening or morning song, pilgrimage song, petitionary song, prayer song, songs to Holy Mary, Jesus, Godfather or local Saints, etc.) are documented with all their local variations. Three compact disks (Phonographic Archives, Austrian Academy of Sciences) complete the written compilation with 166 recordings of 155 songs (1951 to 2013), though not all of them confer the authentic atmosphere of the two-night corpse-watch. Johannes Leopold Mayer`s contribution "Irdische Lieder für `s ewige Leben gesungen sub pietatis austriacae` Earthly songs for eternal life sung sub pietatis austriacae`" and Sabine Scheybal`s melodic register with the songs` incipits conclude the documentation. A dictionary of local dialect, revised by Isolde Hausner (Institute for Lexicography of Austrian Dialects and Names, I DINAMLEX, Austrian Academy of Sciences), the alphabetic list of song-titles and a detailed register give access to the traditions of the Lower AustrianStyrian region of the Wechsel.