The Strasser siblings

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A non-authentic illustration of the Strasser siblings on a sheet music cover from 1883
Program sheet for a concert by the Strasser siblings in Leipzig in 1834
The former home of the Strasser family in Laimach

The Strasser siblings were a singing group from the Tyrolean Zillertal , which contributed significantly to the spread of the Christmas carol " Silent Night, Holy Night " in the 1830s .

history

At the beginning of the 19th century, numerous families from the Zillertal increased their meager income as traveling traders, the rural population preferred in winter. Since folk music was traditionally cultivated in the Zillertal, some of the dealers lured buyers to their stands with music and singing.

So did the Strasser family from Laimach, which is now part of the municipality of Hippach in the Schwaz district in Tyrol ( Austria ). In addition to their small farms, the Strassers also traded in gloves. The widowed father Lorenz Strasser was out and about with his children Anna, Amalie, Caroline, Josef and Alexander on markets in the near and far area, whereby the children also performed as a singing group. With their “ real Tyrolean songs ” they were very popular.

In 1831 Anna (* 1802), Joseph (* 1807), Amalie (* 1809) and Caroline (* 1813) also had their stand at the Leipzig Christmas market , albeit without Alexander, who had died in Königsberg that same year . Their repertoire also included a song that the Zillertal organ builder Karl Mauracher (1789–1844) got to know in the 1820s during an organ repair in Oberndorf near Salzburg and brought it to the Zillertal, where it became very popular. It was "Silent Night, Holy Night".

Franz Alscher, the organist and cantor of the Catholic diaspora community in Leipzig, heard the song in the city and asked the siblings to sing it for Christmas mass in the Catholic chapel in the Pleißenburg . The Tyroleans became a topic of conversation in the city. Before their departure they performed on January 19, 1832 during the breaks of a concert in the Leipzig Gewandhaus .

The Allgemeine Musikische Zeitung wrote about it on February 1st: “ The three lovely daughters and a son of the Strasser family from the Zillerthale (merchants, not singers by profession) were asked for so long during the break until the full gathering was happy allowed to perform some of the Tyrolean national songs so lovingly that the hall echoed with stormy applause. "

In the winter of 1832/33 the Strasser siblings were back in Leipzig and gave their own concert on December 15, 1832 in the hall of the old Hotel de Pologne (formerly Gasthof Zum Birnbaum ), where the Silent Night song could be heard again. This was published in September / October 1832 by A. R. Friese (Dresden and Leipzig).

Due to their success in Leipzig, from then on the Strassers devoted themselves exclusively to singing and traveled all over Germany as a traveling group of singers. In Berlin , the cathedral choir took over the Silent Night song for the Christmas masses, where it became the favorite song of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV . It is also thanks to the latter that the modest Franz Xaver Gruber finally confirmed his authorship of the song in 1854, which until then was considered the Tyrolean folk tune.

Due to the death of Amalie Strasser, who died in Leipzig in 1835, the singing group broke up.

The Strasser siblings are still remembered by their former home in Laimach (Lage) , where a museum was set up in 1999.

literature

  • Silent night, holy night - a song goes out into the world. In: Tiroler Heimatblätter, magazine for history, natural history and folklore , 31st year, January – March 1956, ISSN  0040-8115 , pp. 1–3 ( digitized at www.sagen.at).
  • Franz Schaub: Silent Night, Holy Night: The story of a world-famous song . Husum Verlag , Husum 1992, ISBN 3-88042-616-3 .

Web links

Commons : Geschwister Strasser  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Silent Night, Holy Night - A song goes out into the world. In: Tiroler Heimatblätter, magazine for history, natural history and folklore , 31st year, January – March 1956, ISSN  0040-8115 , pp. 1–3 ( digitized at www.sagen.at).
  2. ↑ Article in the Allgemeine Musikischen Zeitung , 34th year, No. 5 from February 1, 1832, p. 78 ( digitized at archive.org).
  3. ↑ a b Silent Night and Tyrol ( Memento from January 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Hofmeister XIX. Retrieved on April 18, 2019 (Advanced search, title = Silent Night).
  5. ↑ To this end, he wrote the handwritten authentic request ( memento of December 3, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ^ Strasser Häusle , accessed on January 14, 2015