Chlefelen

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A pair of chlefeli from the municipality of Steinen

Chlefelen is a custom in the Lenten season , which in the region Innerschwyz in the Swiss canton of Schwyz is widespread. With the chlefeli, two hardwood boards with notches, children and young people play different marching and dance rhythms . One of the boards is clamped between the middle and index finger , the other held loosely between the middle and ring finger . With rhythmic hand and arm movements, the loose board is hit against the clamped board and made to sound.

The custom is traditionally practiced from the morning of Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday . Originally and until the end of the 1960s, chleefing was an activity for boys, but now it is mostly girls who play with the wooden boards.

Chlefelen is practiced as a custom in the communities of Schwyz , Ingenbohl , Muotathal , Arth , Steinen , Sattel and in the Gersau district and is also promoted there by schools, associations and private individuals. In 2017 it was added to the inventory of living traditions in Switzerland .

history

Primary school students chlefelen together “D Mülleri hed, si hed”.

By 1850 at the latest, the chlefeli in their current form were known as fasting instruments in the region around Schwyz. In folklore they were interpreted as magical noise devices. One suspected the origin also with sickness rattles, since in the year 1611 several thousand people in the old country Schwyz died from a lung plague epidemic . In the Middle Ages and in the early modern period , lepers who lived in infirmaries outside the settlements were supposed to announce their arrival by warning rattles of sicknesses. After 1611, the sickle rattles were probably no longer in use. On the other hand, it was probably around 1600 at the earliest that boys walked around with rattles in the village of Schwyz on Good Friday . In many parts of Switzerland, ratchets are still used on Good Friday. In the course of time, the boys may have switched from the rather unwieldy Good Friday rattles to instruments that were reminiscent of castanets that came to Schwyz through the paid business . In addition, the custom has extended from Holy Week to the entire Lent period.

In the novel Werner Amberg, published in 1949, the Schwyz writer Meinrad Inglin described Chlefeli as follows: “Chlefeli or Klefel are two little boards that we carved from hard wood, slightly burnt at the bottom and notched at the top so that we can find them on both sides of the middle finger hang in and shake hands to make them stick. " He also wrote: «On the way home from school, the boys who owned chlefeli met and marched into the village together, chelping. The aim was to make a real march with a supple wrist instead of just making noise with an unrhythmic entanglement. "

The custom threatened to die out in the meantime. According to Röbi Kessler, an expert on Chlefelen, it survived precisely because it is only cultivated during Lent.

With the support of the teaching staff , Max Felchlin organized the first Priis-Chlefele in Schwyz in 1964 as a competition among school children . In Schwyz, the "s'Chlefele läbt" association, founded in 2001, now holds Chlefeli courses and a Priis Chlefele every year. In Steinen this is done by the Mayday Club and in Muotathal by the Muotathal-Illgau music school. In Arth, Gersau and Brunnen the schools actively promote Chlefelen. For this purpose, a carpenter in Brunnen makes a set of chlefeli for all classes. A Priis-Chlefele does not take place there.

Making the chlefeli

The chlefeli are on average about 10 to 13 cm long and up to 4 cm wide. They are milled out of a planed hardwood strip and sanded. Hard wood is used to achieve the loudest and hardest possible sound. Types of wood such as beech , oak , ash , maple or elm come into question.

Chlefeli music

The most common melodies in Chlefelen are excerpts from the orderly march . But there are also other drum rhythms such as the Zapfenstreich or the fool's dance of the Schwyzer Fasnacht. There are accompanying sayings such as "D Mülleri hed, si hed" to these rhythms.

Julius Nötzli from Wangen brings Chlefelen as a show. The former drummer acts as "Dä Nötzli with de Chlötzli" on several occasions, alone or with Ländler on. He uses the wooden planks as a percussion instrument and plays melodies from different genres such as rock, pop or country music quickly, sometimes with two hands. In the 2016 season of the casting show “ The greatest Swiss talents ”, Nötzli made it to the final. In 2017 he tried his hand at the German TV series « Das Supertalent ».

See also

literature

  • Chlefeli. Lent instruments . In: Culture Commission of the Canton of Schwyz (Ed.): Schwyzer Hefte . tape 1 . Schwyz 1973.

Web links

Commons : Chlefelen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Steinegger: Chlefelen. In: Festivals and customs in the canton of Schwyz. , Schwyz 1989, p. 20.
  2. ↑ Hans Steinegger: Folk culture: customs, festivals and traditions. In: History of the Canton of Schwyz , Vol. 6, Zurich 2012, p. 154.
  3. ↑ a b c Silvia Camenzind: Chlefelen is new on the list of living traditions. In: Messenger of Urschweiz . July 25, 2017, also reproduced on schwyzkultur.ch, accessed on March 23, 2018.
  4. ^ A b Albert Schmid: Chlefeli: Instruments used by Schwyz school children during Lent. In: Chlefeli. Lent instruments. Schwyz 1973, p. 18.
  5. ↑ Brigitte Geiser: Chlefeli: Instruments used by the Schwyz schoolchildren during Lent. In: Chlefeli. Lent instruments. Schwyz 1973, pp. 23-25.
  6. ^ A b Albert Schmid: Chlefeli: Instruments used by Schwyz school children during Lent. In: Chlefeli. Lent instruments. Schwyz 1973, p. 4.
  7. ↑ Nadine Annen: Clubs and schools cultivate customs. In: Messenger of Urschweiz . February 26, 2018, p. 5.
  8. ↑ Albert Schmid: Chlefeli: Instruments used by Schwyz school children during Lent. In: Chlefeli. Lent instruments. Schwyz 1973, p. 7.
  9. ↑ Albert Schmid: Chlefeli: Instruments used by Schwyz school children during Lent. In: Chlefeli. Lent instruments. Schwyz 1973, pp. 8-9.
  10. ↑ "Dä Nötzli with dä Chlötzli" in portrait. In: SRF . February 27, 2016.