Music and Dance

of the Trader and Craftsmen Classes

In the mountainous mining regions of the Tyrol, the miners were well-liked musicians. According to the words of Hippolyt Guarinoni in 1610, they were able to “sing secular and sacred songs very sweetly and well at table and at dances.”[7] With a paid Vorsinger (leading singer) they accompanied the Schwaz residents’ processions on Cross Days to Georgenberg, Vomp, Mariathal and Seefeld. They are first documented as showing up in Georgenberg as Epiphany carolers in 1656. In Wilten Abbey they performed traditional musical New Year’s greetings for the monastic community until the end of the 18th century and were given “money for singing” (Singgelt) for it. At the Innsbruck court, the Hall salt miners turned up to sing the compliments of the New Year. “Singing miners” from Schwaz were much sought after at court from the mid-16th century on. Archduke Ferdinand took two of them along on his trip to Prague in 1570. In 1602 the mining manager (Bergrichter) of Schwaz had to send “four of the best Schwazer Singers, including a boy” to Innsbruck for the arrival of Archduke Maximilian III. Emperor Leopold I watched “the dances and rustic games performed by the miners” in Schwaz on 1 October 1665. The ore miners, who sang “beautiful miners’ rhymes” at a wedding in Sprechenstein Castle in 1525, came from nearby Sterzing. There they also performed sword dances in the second half of the 16th century. The melody of the “Sterzinger Bergreihen” (round dance), whose oldest documentary evidence can be dated 1588, has survived in a later version in Styria. As late as the 19th century the miners had their own group of singers and orchestra at the Schneeberg in Passeier, as well as in Imst in the 18th century. Schwaz miners played wind instruments at midnight mass on Christmas Eve until the beginning of the 19th century.[8]
The band of the Hall salt-works was formed in 1821, an outgrowth of the existent group of miner musicians. It could be heard at parades and when high-ranking visitors came to town. It was joined by the Pfannhausmusik, a salt-miner’s band newly founded in 1838 that provided only brass harmony, with clarinets only after 1854 but never percussion instruments. The miner trainee (Bergpraktikant) Alois Kaltenbach of Hall founded a men’s singing society (Männergesangverein) in Hall in 1853. It showed up for the salt-works’ divine services, miners’ festivities in Absam and the annual banquet (Stubenmahl).[9]
The coopers of Bozenput on a hoop dance (Reifdance) as far back as 1474. Up to the beginning of the 19th century it was often presented as a show for high-ranking visitors, e.g. in 1769 for Archduchess Maria Amalia, the fiancée of Archduke Ferdinand of Parma, in 1790 for Queen Maria Luise, the wife of Emperor Leopold II, in 1822 for Emperor Franz I and Czar Alexander I of Russia.[10] The painter Anton Cusetti (1750-1793) of Bozen depicted the coopers’ dance of 1790 in an oil painting.[11] The dance orchestra is shown with three violins, a small three-stringed cello (“Bassettl”), two horns and two transverse flutes. Off to the side are five pipers (Schwegler) and another orchestra, each in separate groups. The journeymen of the Meran coopers performed hoop dances in distinctive costume especially for the occasion on their “Dinzeltag” (anniversary: 4 May, later 25 May) in the 19th century.
The millers and bakers of Meran celebrated their anniversary (Jahrtag) in 1874 with a “mass for the departed and for thanksgiving (Seel- und Lob-Ambt) and sung vigil on the eve.” In the afternoon there was a parade with music, followed by a meal and dancing at the inn. That same year the cobblers from the vicinity met in Meran for a divine service and a procession accompanied by music.[12]

Fussnoten

[7] Hippolyt GUARINONI, Die Grewel der Verwüstung Menschlichen Geschlechts, Ingolstadt 1610, p. 189.
 
[8] For a survey of the music of the miners in the Tyrol, see Hildegard HERRMANN-SCHNEIDER, “‘Mit lieblichen Stimmen sich lustig hören lassen’ - Vom Musizieren der Bergleute in Tirol,” Silber, Erz und weißes Gold: Bergbau in Tirol, exh. cat. Tiroler Landesausstellung 1990 in Schwaz, Innsbruck 1990, p. 402ff;
Erich EGG, “Das kirchliche Musikleben im alten Schwaz,” Tiroler Heimatblätter 37 (1962) p. 45f;
Maurus KRAMER OSB, “Zur Musikgeschichte der Benediktinerabtei St. Georgenberg-Fiecht im späten Mittelalter bis zum Barock mit Einschluß der Aigner-Orgel von 1870,” 850 Jahre Benediktinerabtei St. Georgenberg-Fiecht 1138-1988 (Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktiner-Ordens und seiner Zweige 31), St. Ottilien 1988, p. 302;
Hildegard HERRMANN-SCHNEIDER, “Vom Musikleben im Stift Wilten,” Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 72 (1988) p. 77f;
Walter SENN, “Pfarrschule und Kirchenchor: Die Musikkapelle des Damenstiftes,” Haller Buch (Schlern-Schriften 106), Innsbruck 1953, p. 439;
Walter SENN, Musik und Theater am Hof zu Innsbruck, Innsbruck 1954, p. 177;
Walter SENN, “Innsbrucker Hofmusik,” Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 25 (1970) p. 662;
Walter SENN, “Volkslieder in Tirol bis zum 17. Jahrhundert,” Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Kulturwissenschaft 3 (1955) p. 187, 193;
Anton DÖRRER, Tirol in Sterzing [!] Volkskultur und Persönlichkeitsbilder, preprint (Schlern-Schriften 232), Innsbruck 1964, p. 14, 32;
Richard WOLFRAM, Schwerttanz und Männerbund, Kassel 1936, p. 44;
Ludwig SCHÖNACH, “Beitrag zur Geschichte der Meistersinger in Schwaz,” Forschungen und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte Tirols und Vorarlbergs 2, no. 1 (1905) p. 73;

Franz Carl ZOLLER, Geschichte und Denkwürdigkeiten der Stadt Innsbruck und der umliegenden Gegend 2, Innsbruck 1825, p. 3;
Adam WOLF, Lucas Geizkofler und seine Selbstbiographie, 1550-1620, Vienna 1873, p. 16;
Konrad FISCHNALER, “Die Volksschauspiele zu Sterzing im XV. und XVI. Jahrhundert,” Zeitschrift des Ferdinandeums für Tirol und Vorarlberg 3rd series, no. 38 (1894) p. 373;
Anton DÖRRER, “Hundert Innsbrucker Notendrucke aus dem Barock: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Musik und des Theaters in Tirol,” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 14 (1939) p. 267;
Hans KRAMER, “Beiträge zu einer Chronik von Sterzing und Umgebung 1814 bis 1914,” Veröffentlichungen des Museum Ferdinandeum 31 (1951) p. 471;
Otto HAUDEK, “140 Jahre ‘Bürgerkapelle Ehrwald’,” Festschrift 140 Jahre Bürgerkapelle Ehrwald, Ehrwald 1948, p. 9;
Erich EGG, “Schwaz vom Anfang bis 1850,” Stadtbuch Schwaz: Natur-Bergbau-Geschichte, ed. Erich Egg et al., Schwaz 1986, p. 146, 203;
cf. Gerhard HEILFURTH, Bergbaukultur in Südtirol, Bozen 1984, p. 248ff;
Florian PICHLER, Südtirol in alten Lichtbildern, Bozen 1979, n.p.
 
[9] Hermann EGGER, Die Entwicklung der Blasmusik in Tirol, typescript,  PhD Innsbruck 1952, p. 32f, 95f;
Karl LEIPERT, Hundert Jahre Tiroler Sängerbund 1860-1960 (Schlern-Schriften 211), Innsbruck 1960, p. 74.
 
[10] Anton DÖRRER, Bozner Bürgerspiele: Alpendeutsche Prang- und Kranzfeste I (Bibliothek des Literarischen Vereins in Stuttgart 291), Leipzig 1941, p. 102;
Gustav GUGITZ, “Eine unbekannte Reiftanzaufführung im alten Wien,” Jahrbuch des österreichischen Volksliedwerkes 3 (1954) p. 86, 88f;
TIROLER Tageszeitung (3 April 1987) p. 5.
 
[11] The original is in the Bozen Stadtmuseum, Inv.-Nr. .
 
[12] O. von REINSBERG-DÜRINGSFELD, Culturhistorische Studien aus Meran, Leipzig 1874, p. 122f, 127, 146.