Around 800,000 people will celebrate a Christmas service in Weilheim on December 26th - on the radio.
The "Bayern 1" listeners can experience a world premiere, live from the parish church Mariae Himmelfahrt.
After the ZDF television service in 2017, Weilheim's city parish again has a major media appearance
“Bayern 1” broadcasts a service from the parish church on Christmas Day
Church musician Jürgen Geiger has set a text by parish priest Engelbert Birkle to music
Weilheim
- Weilheim's Catholic parish community already has experience with “big appearances” in the media: In March 2017, the ZDF broadcast a mass from the parish church Mariae Himmelfahrt as a television service.
Afterwards, many viewers were particularly touched by a song that the church musician Jürgen Geiger from Weilheim had composed especially for this mass - based on a poem by pastor Engelbert Birkle.
The parish office still receives e-mails to this day asking for the sheet music for the piece “Taborweg”, which the extended “sound circle” of the parish community had sung live at the time.
The recording of the highly atmospheric service is still available on the Internet - at www.zdf.fernsehgottesdienst.de or www.katholisch.de.
The range is even greater than on television
When the radio station "Bayern 1" broadcasts a "High Mass for Christmas" live from Weilheim on December 26, 2020, Boxing Day, the effort is a few numbers smaller than for the television service: there was a 25-strong television team for the latter at the time For days on site, three employees are enough for the radio, as Pastor Birkle explains.
However, the range is even slightly larger than with TV: around 800,000 listeners are expected.
And they can look forward to another world premiere from Weilheim.
Stadtpfarrer Birkle, of whom two volumes of poetry have already been published, has again written a lyric text for the conclusion of his sermon - which Jürgen Geiger has set to music.
It is about the first Christian martyr, St. Stephen, whose feast day is December 26th.
Bringing its martyrdom and the merry Christmas message together was the challenge of their song for the two Weilheimers.
Incidentally, the result is quite unique: "So far, there are hardly any musical works that refer to Stephanus," Geiger found out during his research.
A professional quartet sings around a Weilheim soprano
“Stephanus” is not sung by a local choir - the Corona regulations would not allow that at all - but by a vocal quartet made up of professional singers.
Also in the party are the Weilheimer soprano Veronika Loy, who studies at the Salzburg Mozarteum, as well as Kerstin Rosenfeldt (alto), Michael Birgmeier (tenor) and Werner Rollenmüller (bass).
In addition to “stephanus”, for which Geiger combined classical elements with modern rhythms, a new “Agnus Dei” penned by the church musician from Weilheim will also be heard at the festive service.
In addition, the trumpet and trombone quartet "SchwabBrass" around Anian Schwab, the conductor of the Weilheim town band, plays Christmas tunes.
Read here who recently received the Weilheim Culture Prize 2020
Now those involved hope that the pandemic does not put another line in the way of the planned musical design.
Especially since they have already invested a lot of effort in the radio service: the process has been meticulously prepared in the past few weeks, tried out part by part and stopped with the clock.
After the first draft, another eight minutes had to be shortened to get the given length of 55 minutes.
That is comparatively generous compared to the 45 minutes of the TV service.
The challenge, however, is that it has to fit the second.
Pastor Birkle's sermon text has also been fixed for a long time.
He had the idea for this back in September, and not much later “things were adjusted,” as he says.
Lots of positive feedback
Because “everything is about voice and word” on the radio, the claim is perhaps even higher than with the television version, the clergyman reflects.
The music is probably even more important this time.
Creating your own work for it, “you can't do that every Sunday,” says Birkle with great respect for his church musician.
But the many positive feedback after the TV service in 2017 are additional motivation for the people of Weilheim - also for having to do additional rehearsals on the Christmas holidays.
The composer Jürgen Geiger has no doubt that the effort is worthwhile: He wants to "give people something that comes from the heart and maybe something unique, especially in this comical Corona time."
The radio service
on Saturday, December 26th, starts at 10:05 am and can be heard live on the “Bayern 1” program.
In the parish church Mariae Himmelfahrt there are only limited places available due to corona.
Pastor Birkle asks the faithful, who “usually” come to the 9.30 am mass, to join the service in the church on December 26th at 10.05 am.
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