Ruedi Rymann, Swiss Yodeling Star, Dies at 75

NYT

October 7, 2008
Ruedi Rymann, Swiss Yodeling Star, Dies at 75
By BRUCE WEBER

Ruedi Rymann, a Swiss farmer and cheesemaker renowned in his home country as a yodeler and the man who recorded what came to be known as “Switzerland’s greatest hit,” died on Sept. 10 at his home in Giswil, south of Zurich. He was 75.

His family told the Swiss newspaper Blick he had been suffering from liver cancer and decided in June to end chemotherapy treatments. He is survived by his wife and six children.

To the Swiss, Mr. Rymann was something of a cultural representative, the embodiment of a kind of Swissness that was steeped in tradition. A forester, a hunter and generally an outdoorsman, he was an athlete as well, running a local club devoted to the uniquely Swiss style of wrestling known as swingen, in which the combatants strive to toss each other beyond the bounds of a circular bed of sawdust. And though yodeling — a type of singing in which a falsetto, or head voice, alternates with a deeper, natural chest voice — is native to a number of countries and migrated to a number of others, including the United States, it is most closely associated with Switzerland, where one theory has it that it developed as a method of alpine communication, to be heard from mountaintop to mountaintop. The Swiss Yodeling Association, founded in 1910, attracts over 200,000 visitors to its National Yodeling Festival every three years.

Mr. Rymann was a master yodeler in the Swiss style which, according to the book “Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo,” a remarkably comprehensive tour of the yodeling universe by Bart Plantenga (Routledge, 2004), does not make use of the “eee” sound.

“And, to the surprise of most neophytes, it has a decided melancholy feeling — slow, mournful, forlorn,” Mr. Plantenga wrote.

Mr. Rymann, whose natural voice was a bell-like tenor, made numerous recordings, singing alone or with other yodelers — sometimes even yodel choruses — and often accompanied by a jaunty accordion or two. His recording of a traditional folk song, “Dr Schacher Seppli,” became a fixture on Swiss request radio.

The song is a melodic lament by a poor wanderer, the title character, whose name roughly translates as Joe Schacher, about the unfairness of life and the rewards awaiting him in heaven. The lyrics go, in part:

The world is a turbulent place.

I’ve observed it many times:

People hurt each other just because of that damned money.

How beautiful it could be down here.

The bird on the tree sings,

“Look at your land, isn’t Switzerland a dream?”

The song was so popular that in 2007, when a Swiss television series devoted to popular national music polled its viewers, they voted Mr. Rymann’s “Dr Schacher Seppli” the greatest Swiss hit of all.