Alpine Folk Music

Alpine folk music is the traditional music of the Alpine arc, Austria, Bavaria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, Slovenia and the Italian and French Alps. Its core repertory comprises Ländler, polkas, waltzes, boarischer and zwiefacher dances, yodelling, alphorn calls and the sung Gstanzl couplet, performed on diatonic button accordion (Steirische Harmonika), zither, dulcimer (Hackbrett), clarinet, brass and double bass by village Musikanten ensembles. Sustained by church feasts, weddings, Alm festivals and dance halls, it was commercialised in the twentieth century as Volksmusik and renewed from the 1980s by the Neue Volksmusik and Alpenrock movements, which fuse the idiom with rock, jazz and world music.