Saturday, November 27, 2010

Rest in peace, Maria Hellwig.

Maria Hellwig, let me guess, was probably not on your radar.

Let me tell you about Maria.

Germany, Austria, and Switzerland may have given us Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Mozart. And Humperdinck. And Franz Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee.

But they also gave us the cuckoo clock. Which, no coincidence, rhymes with schlock.

I grew up on this schlock. My grandmother would listen to it for hours.

Maria Hellwig was the kind of woman she would want me to carry around with me, if one carried music around with oneself back in the day. “If you’re ever out in the world and don’t feel safe, go to where people are singing,” she would say. She had Maria Hellwig in mind.

I was barely into my teens before this music began to give me the willies. It’s so over the top saccharine. The words are Ur-banal. Dumm as a cowflop. Ridiculous is a step up. But I could never shed it completely, because trashing it, given my grandmother’s love of the genre, always made me feel like I was kicking a cat.

As in other modern countries, folk music has become best known in its Hollywood variation, with phony nostalgic happy happy joy joy setups, oh, let’s sing and dance and be gay (the old gay, not the new gay, of course). Japan has its enka, Poland its polka. And the German nations the waltz and the yodel. Well, the southerners among the Germanic folk, anyway.

There’s music to make you cry, music to make you swoon, music to make you get up and dance. This is music to make you realize it is possible to lose your cookies and have a laughing fit simultaneously.

Take equal parts country music, Lawrence Welk, and honey. Mix in a blender and pour over sugar cubes and eat with a spoon. Chocolate sprinkles add a nice touch.

Alas, it’s fading away. Maria Hellwig has died at the age of 90 in Ruhpolding, near her birthplace, Reit im Winkl (ride in the corner) close to the Austrian border. Her passing is a serious setback to modern-day German folk music. Not a death blow - this kind of thing, like swamp gas, always rises again. But a profound loss to a whole lot of people.

Have a quick look (you probably will not want to dwell.) Here are three glimpses at Maria doing her thing. The first is a song called

Wenn’st niemand mehr zum Reden hast” (When you don’t have anyone to talk to)

The second is “Wenn wir auch nicht jünger werden” (Even though we’re not getting any younger) . It gives you an idea of the fun-loving rhythm-challenged folk who make up her audience. (Watch the whole thing, especially the part where a fan gets his confetti tangled in her hair.)

And the third, my offering for the pièce de résistance of music to commit suicide by (especially if you know this is the same neighborhood that produced Mozart), here she is, with her daughter Margot, in front of her very own “Cow Stall” Restaurant and Café, singing that great paean to the three German speaking nations, Austria (where they say Servus), Switzerland (Grüezi) and Germany (hallo), “Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo. ”

Holleroihi, by the way, is how you put a yodel to paper.

I’ve Englished it for your listening pleasure.

Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo

Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo
Holleroihi
Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo
Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo
Holleroihi
Gute Laune sowieso
denn Musik macht alle froh.
Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo
Holleroi
Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo.
Servus, Gruezi und Hallo

Wir singen heute von schönen Ländern
von Österreich, Deutschland und der Schweiz
von unserer Heimat und uns´ren Nachbarn
und grüßen herzlich allerseits.

Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo
Holleroihi
Gute Laune sowieso
denn Musik macht alle froh.
Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo
Holleroi
Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo.

Die einen jodeln
die andern singen
und jeder freut sich auf der Welt
weil uns doch Deutschland
das schöne Österreich
und auch die Schweiz so gut gefällt

Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo
Holleroihi
Gute Laune sowieso
denn Musik macht alle froh.
Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo
Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo

Und keine Berge und keine Täler
und auch kein Fluss trennt mich von dir.
In alle Länder, die ich hier meine
bin ich verliebt, drum singen wir:

Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo
Holleroihi
Gute Laune sowieso
denn Musik macht alle froh.
Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo
Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo

Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo
Holleroihi
Gute Laune sowieso
denn Musik macht alle froh.
Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo
Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo

And in English...

Hello (in Austrian), Hello (in Swiss), and Hello (in German)
Servus, Grüezi und Hallo
(yodel yodel)
Good spirits in any case
because music makes everybody happy.
Servus, Grüezi und Hallo
(yodel yodel)
Servus, Grüezi und Hallo

We sing today of beautiful countries, of Austria, Germany and Switzerland
of our home and our neighbors
and say hello to everybody all around.

Servus, Grüezi und Hallo
(yodel yodel)
Good spirits in any case
because music makes everybody happy.
Servus, Grüezi und Hallo
(yodel yodel)
Servus, Grüezi und Hallo

Some yodel
Others sing
and everybody is happy in the world
because we like Germany, the beautiful Austria and also Switzerland so much.

Servus, Grüezi und Hallo
(yodel yodel)
Good spirits in any case
because music makes everybody happy
Servus, Grüezi und Hallo
Servus, Grüezi und Hallo
And no mountains and no valleys and also no river can separate me from you.
With all the countries I speak of here
I am in love, so let´s sing:

Servus, Grüezi, und Hallo

(repeat till the cows come home)


I rest my case.

You rest, too, Maria.

You were a lovely lady.

Seriously.




____

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