Weekly Recommendation: Klingendes Österreich
Hey there!
Here’s your weekly German media recommendation from Monoglot Anxiety. This time, it's the Austrian TV series Klingendes Österreich
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Klingendes Österreich
Klingendes Österreich is an Austrian TV series produced by the public broadcaster ORF. Each episode centers the landscape, music, and cultural traditions of a different region in the vaguely-defined Austro-Bavarian alpine realm, so mostly Austria, bits of Bavaria, and Southern Tyrol. The show always consists of beautiful footage of landscapes and landmarks iconic to the region highlighted in the episode interspersed with traditional folk music played by local musical groups. If you're interested in Austrian and Bavarian history and culture, this show should be on your watchlist. It isn't meant to be critical or analytical—look elsewhere if that's what you want—it's meant to be cozy. And it really is. Klingendes Österreich is basically wholesomeness concentrated into a sticky sugary syrup, served over sweet musical ice cream. Maybe that's too sweet for you, but I love it. My boyfriend's parents seem to watch this every time it's on, and sitting on the couch with them to watch it together with everyone is one of my warmest memories of Austria.
You can find many episodes of Klingendes Österreich on YouTube. Here's an episode about Upper Austria and Bavaria.
Remembering Sepp Forcher, long-time host of Klingendes Österreich
I'm making this recommendation now because the long-time face of Klingendes Österreich, Sepp Forcher, died earlier this week. Forcher was born in Italy and raised in Southern Tyrol. He hosted 200 episodes of Klingendes Österreich before finally retiring at just under 90 years old. And if you watch a few episodes, you'll understand why Forcher was so special. It's hard to imagine the show working with someone else—he's just so genuine and positive, and he seems to truly enjoy every moment of what he's doing. Without that kind of personality, it would be hard to take a show that treads so close to postcard-kitsch seriously. But it works, and it's warm and amazing because of Sepp Forcher. There's a lot more to his story, and I recommend checking out the ORF's obituary for Forcher on the ORF website.
That's it for this week.
Elise from Monoglot Anxiety