Under the village lime tree, once a gift from the Swiss Friends of the Singers, the men's choir in Unterbrunn was grouped together for the © Dagmar Rutt
The Unterbrunn Male Choir is visited by musical colleagues from Egolzwil-Wauwil - the preparations for this are in full swing.
Unterbrunn – "At the fountain in front of the gate...": To the piano accompaniment of Ulrike Leitl-Haag, singers from Unterbrunn sang the romantic folk song on Tuesday evening at the Gasthaus Högner. It was the last choir rehearsal before the visit of the Swiss singer colleagues from Egolzwil-Wauwil on the upcoming weekend – for Hermann Geiger, the chairman, and the other members of the almost 100-year-old men's choir Harmonie.
In the village with its flourishing club life, preparations for the visit from the canton of Lucerne to Lake Lucerne are in full swing. After a long Corona forced break, the Unterbrunners are looking forward to the big reunion, Geiger reported during rehearsals. There is a reason why the association, which has already been ennobled with the Gautinger Klinge Culture Prize and founded in 1924, is associated with a Swiss choir, of all people: "The Walser Michi was employed in Egolzwil at the State Institute for Animal Breeding," Geiger explained. And because the enthusiastic Unterbrunn choir singer was active as a board member, the connection with the Swiss came about.
46 years ago, the large male choir from Egolzwil was in Unterbrunn for the first time, bass singer Geiger looks back. And for the 20th anniversary, "the people of Egolzwil brought us a lime tree as a gift in their bus". The village lime tree planted in Unterbrunn at that time had a trunk circumference of five centimetres. Today, the sprawling deciduous tree already has a trunk circumference of more than 30 centimeters. The large river stones under the bench, which was also donated, were also contributed by the Swiss singer friends.
"At the fountain in front of the gate, there is a lime tree," the eight men of the 60-plus generation liked to sing at the choir rehearsal at the Gasthaus Högner. The folk song set to music by Franz Schubert will also be sung by the people of Unterbrunn during the upcoming visit from Egolzwil, says Geiger. 48 Swiss had announced themselves. On Saturday from 18 p.m. the joint singing evening will take place in the "Högner". There will be children's, youth, mixed and men's choirs, all under the professional direction of Ulrike Leitl-Haag. "Hooray, we're still alive!" – the singers, accompanied by the conductor at the piano, also belted this out in preparation. After the Corona pandemic with a ban on singing, this does indeed sound promising.
CHRISTINE CLESS-WESLE