ALPINE YODELLING

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 71, 25 March 1937, Page 9

ALPINE YODELLING

HOW IT BEGAN

Anyone hearing Austrian fo!k music is impressed by its close • relation, ta yodelling. That, without doubt, is on« of its sources And experts say foils music is one of the chief sources, of Austria s classic music.

The Viennese believe, furthermore, that Austrian classical music is the best the German race has produced and German music is claimed to be the bes b in the world, says a writer —in - the "Christian Science Momtoi "

Alpine' milkmaids, it •is averred, started yodelling. These young people are soften; lonely: Each spring they leave their villages and go high up in the Alps to "summer homes" called alms with their fathers' nerds. A grandpa may go along to look after them.

Such little groups of hardy youth remain'in their picturesque isolation hall a year at a time. •

During the time the young peoplft keep -watch'in'the mountains they like to call to one another. The folks, of one "aim" shout to those of another: those from one pasture cry to theif friends across, the valley... They alsn shout to themselves, just to hear their voices reverberate from a score of distant cliffs. When one sings in the Alps every peak takes up the refrain, so that a single voice becomes a chorus. You might say each aim has its own "yell." If you hear a melodious stream of "o-le-o's," you know it's from fh« Schmidt aim; the "ou-dul-dee-ou's" are the Meyers' specialty. That, in the course of time, became yodelling songs without words, shrill, high; rapidly'rising and falling, liquid sounds, shouts: and humming. And from the Alps it spread to neighbour ing districts.