Ebersberg: Christmas carols – kitsch or culture? – Ebersberg

How should it be now, the perfect Christmas carol? Maybe a little romantic? Ringed in with the tinkling of bells or interspersed with tinkling, which sets the rhythm for imaginary sleigh horses in two-beat? And the image of landscapes sinking deep into untouched snow evokes in us? Or that of the white-clad Central Park in New York. In America it always seems bitterly cold and white when the holidays are approaching, regardless of whether Meg Ryan is dragging her Christmas tree home in “Harry and Sally”, Kevin ambushing burglars at home or the wonderful George Bailey aka James Stewart in “Is.” life is not beautiful “rescues a heavenly envoy from the stream behind the village of Bedford Falls. The majority of the American cinema classics that are broadcast every year want us to believe that the snow flurry is always on schedule, as does their background music: “Jingle Bells” or “Winter Wonderland”. The marmot greets you every year.

Do choirs have to trill for a Christmas carol to be perfect?

Every year the fairy tale of the white Christmas is celebrated here, too, the lakes rest rigid and still, and the snowflakes fall, that it is a real joy. But is that enough for the perfect Christmas carol? Is so much romantic emotion unnecessary, don’t shepherds have to come out of the bare darkness of a bushless, fallow landscape in the Middle East, shouldn’t a manger of donkeys and ox be surrounded and a newborn child be praised as the savior of the world? Do choirs have to warble and Heintje blar?

Hans Klaffl, a musician by trade, but above all a cabaret artist and thus blessed with a thoroughly critical view of the world in general and Christmas in particular, it seems to shake in the truest sense of the word when he ponders the boy in the stable. So to associate such a naked newborn with saving the world is a bit beyond his imagination, says the retired music teacher from Ebersberg with barely hidden irony. Now he is, he must emphasize at this point, not a person who feels obliged to the church, but does not want to talk anyone into his religious feelings, especially not when making music. And of course he always sang at home on Christmas Eve as a child, “at least three songs and at least 15 stanzas”, together with the rest of the family, the father contributed his grumbling cobbler baritone, “my sister and I were the only ones could sing, that must have sounded very harmonious, “jokes Klaffl. It was only when he was a little older that he began to grapple with the content of those pieces that “rhymed on Christ Child, come out”, and then distanced himself a little from it.

“‘Shepherds first announced’, what does that mean?” asks Klaffl provocatively and with great fervor about the musical and textual inadequacies of the classic Christmas carol culture and the discrepancy between the religious statement and the textual and linguistic level, but also about the bell bells that ring in the shopping markets, “and you know exactly that it’s just about the tills ringing “.

Open detailed view

And, if they had sat together at the same table, the Vaterstetten composer Enjott Schneider would have agreed with him, as would the Steinhöring folk musician and home nurse Sepp Huber or the Erdingen musician and composer Martina Eisenreich – even if Schneider and Huber were among them approach the matter with a completely different attitude. Schneider wrote about consumer terror by email, about kitsch, to which Christmas had degenerated, society had “become so gross”, with loud advertising and entertainment at all costs, “that there was no longer any room for spirituality”. He once set a Christmas carol to music himself, he reports, but not “according to the Gospel of Luke with a manger and donkey as usual, but according to the Gospel of John. The birth there is wonderfully pure,” said Schneider, “and the word became spirit . So God was born as a man “.

“You can’t tell blind people about color,” says Enjott Schneier

Lines that passers-by probably don’t know what to do with, about which cabaret artist Klaffl gets upset – those who, in a street survey, would not even have known why Christmas is celebrated at all. Enjott Schneider would have nodded in agreement, as his answer to the question about the perfect Christmas carol and the ingredients that such a car must have is: “You cannot tell the blind about color and the loveless about love.”

Open detailed view

But, wait, Christmas Eve shouldn’t be that defeatist, at this point Martina Eisenreich comes into play, the composer who has many connections through the Kirchseeon music legend Fritz Lohmeier, her father-in-law, and numerous appearances with her string quartet maintains the district of Ebersberg. She associates Christmas carols with “Peace, contemplation, family, childhood memories – how else can you call that up when you are perhaps in a remote corner of the world?” Even if Christmas today is so strongly connected with consumption, with effort and also with high costs, classical Christmas music also means culture, for her it is the “form of internalized Christmas”, she says. “When we come together as musicians and play Christmas carols, then we don’t have to practice, everyone knows them and everyone can do them.” Eisenreich compares the sensation evoked by the familiar tones of a Christmas carol with a scent from childhood. “What else does this power have?” A scene in a film, backed up with “Oh, du Fröhliche” or “Jingle Bells”, says the composer, immediately creates a very special mood, which can be as funny or bizarre as it is contemplative – and also the annoyed rolling eyes, the Christmas carols caused by some people belong to the general feeling of this common culture.

Open detailed view

With “Power up the door”, Sepp Huber begins to wait for Christmas

At any rate, Sepp Huber cannot do without that eye roll, especially when the warbling tones of the Christmas music follow the gingerbread offered in the shops on September 1st, the darkness of Advent is not met with the necessary calm, but with tons of fairy lights and permanently lit Christmas trees, if the actual festival has long been anticipated. Not that singing shouldn’t be done in Advent, he explains and calls it “Open the door” https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/ebersberg/. Then the waiting for Christmas begins for him, enthuses Huber, until music is played under the brightly lit Christmas tree at the winter solstice. And gladly in Bavarian. “It’s just a Christian festival, and that’s very anchored in us.” With us, for Huber that means far out and away from the brightly lit events, behind Steinhöring, where there are probably many who can sing along to “In Nacht und Dunkel lies the earth” or “What is the ox doing in the crib drin “, who also know the devotional yodeler that Martina Eisenreich likes to play at the beginning of the Christmas Eve on the Quetschn; thinking of her Bavarian homeland, as she says. Sepp Huber then intones “Heisa, Buama, get up quickly”, and perhaps he would even meet with approval from Hans Klaffl, who then turns out to be a fan of “Es wird scho same dumpa “outet. “It’s not too kitschy,” he says.

Klaffl shows a certain indulgence with seriously performed Christmas music, such as the English a cappella ensemble The Kings Singers celebrated. “You are tempted to ignore the text because it just sounds nice.” Even “Silent Night” seems to find halfway grace in front of his ears – perhaps because of the range that one cannot expect from average talented singers, but perhaps also because of the melodic harmony with Bizet’s “Toreador” -Arie from the opera “Carmen”: ” ‘Off to the fight, torrero’ “, listen, only the rhythm is a little different,” says Klaffl with a smile. His ideal Christmas carol “would have nothing to do with Christmas”.

Composer Enjott Schneider, on the other hand, breaks a lance for “Es ist ein Ros sprung” – “a jewel”, as he puts it, the composer of which will be celebrating his 400th anniversary of death and 450th birthday in 2021, completely unnoticed. Regardless of what Christmas carol you think, most of the people can probably sign Martina Eisenreich’s résumé: “The songs are like the Christmas cookies: from January 1st, nobody can see them either.”