Symphonie Fastnachtique, Four Tunes from the Basler Fasnacht String Quartet - Digital Sheet Music

SKU: A0.977347

The Basler Fasnacht, known locally in Basel Stadt (CH) as D’ drey scheenschte Dääg (the three loveliest days), is a world-famous carnival where the Zeitgeist animates centuries of tradition. Local folks celebrate together with a good-humoured satire of current events through costumes, masks, poetry and visual art on carnival floats and lanterns. Amongst many other activities, participants decorate the city and open ad-hoc bars to sustain everyone with drinks and characteristic foods, all of which led to the Basler Fasnacht being included on the Unesco Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2017.

Central to the whole experience is the music played on the streets, without electronic amplification, by two types of group: Gugge, with brass and percussion and Clique, with piccolos and side-drums made and played according to local custom.

Symphonie Fastnachtique, part 1 contains four melodies from the Cliques: Der Arabi Nr 1, 2 and 3, followed by the Wettstein Marsch by Swiss composer Hermann Huber (1870-1926). The melodies in Der Arabi may sound familiar but the chances are that they pre-date their more famous versions. For example, Der Arabi Nr 1 is now better known as The British Grenadiers from the early 1700s but can be traced as far back as the 1560s, when the Basler Fasncacht was already centuries old and the Schweizerpfeife (Swiss Flute), with drums, supplied the de rigueur regimental music for foot-soldiers all over Europe.

This version for string quartet is a mixture of original piccolo voicings and indulgence by the arranger. Some of the part for viola is based on an optional 4th voice, the Zierstimm.

Fasnacht is a glorious celebration laced with a melancholy reflected by the marching tempi of the Cliques: often slower than 90 BPM. A "standard" march is around 120 BPM. 

Vyyl Gniege! (Enjoy!)