Christmas in the Austrian Alps

These Christmas carols from the Alps eschew the stylization customary in “high” art. The Latin-German mixture of languages that predominated in the midnight Christmas liturgy, with priests and laypeople taking turns singing, was replaced by the familiar local dialect. The texts and melodies were passed down orally and underwent many changes as they traveled through the Alpine valleys. At their core, they are one of the most important sources for what is known today as “German Christmas music.”