Song Stories: Music and Song in Tyrolean Politics and Society 1796-1848

The book is dedicated to a selection of particularly impressive political songs from the period between 1796 and 1848. It offers a more complex picture of the time that was so formative for Tyrol than "hits" such as Zu Mantua in Banden and Ach Himml es ist verspielt might suggest. The song lyrics presented tell of cryptic manipulation, open propaganda and servile whitewashing, of malicious sarcasm and blind glorification of violence. Not only politically inflamed composers contributed melodies, often German hits of the 19th century were converted, rarely we find folk melodies, sometimes even Tyrolean "ethnopop" was conceived for foreign countries.