What a Weekend!

I have just experienced one of the most amazing weekends of my life. Our instructor Uli just about flipped when she found out that there were so many string players in our group and invited some of us to her home for the weekend to play chamber music. That's the good thing about playing the viola. You always get an invite! Virginia from Italy plays the violin as does Cathy from Columbia. Cathy and I play in the University orchestra together, but that's probably a post for another day. Marta from Spain is an awesome pianist and Uli is learning the cello. We all thought it would be fun to play some piano quintets, so after class on Friday we stuffed all our gear into a small VW and tooled on up into the mountains.


That's me on the left, then Virginia, Cathy, and Uli. Marta was taking the picture.

We arrived in Altaussee, the village where Uli lives, after dark. It had been raining at the lower elevations, but once we got some altitude, the rain changed to snow. Cathy was really quite excited about the whole thing because it doesn't snow in Columbia.
The local people were having a bonfire and serving hot "punch" which was cider and cinnamon and probably a fair amount of schnapps, judging from how quickly we all relaxed.
The best was yet to come. All of a sudden we heard roaring (for lack of a better word) and the Krampus arrived!!
The Krampus are a uniquely alpine tradition. They travel with St. Nicholas who as you may know brings sweets to the good children of the village. The naughty children get floggings from the Krampus. The Krampus are dressed in goat or sheep skin and wear masks that look like devils. Here's a picture of some Krampus in Salzburg. They are very trendy looking for the tourists.


The Krampus in Altaussee were a little more down to earth. While it's true that they flogged us with homemade switches, it really didn't hurt. They wore real sheep's horns and had carved their masks out of wood. They looked a bit more like Yeti with an attitude. I'll try to post a picture. When they weren't terrorizing the villagers, you could see them opening their masks, drinking punch, and kissing their girlfriends. I would say that they are "user friendly" Krampus, although I'm sure Virginia would disagree.
Someone must have pointed out to the Krampus that there were foreigners in the crowd. We were easily identified, or more specifically, Virginia was easily identified by her white hat with the big pompom on top. I think she got her face washed with snow 3 or 4 times! She must have been super naughty this year!
Many cups of punch later we piled into the car and headed up what must have once been a goat trail to Uli's house. When we got up the next morning we were treated to this vista:

Yeow! We hiked around the village and then went back to the house to make music.
I ended up playing the recorder! Uli had this lovely concerto by Pepusch for Two Recorders, Two violins and Continuo. It was the obvious thing for me to play as there was no viola part and no one else besides me and Uli who plays the recorder. It was a ball! I played soprano and tenor, and since I hadn't brought any with me, I got to play Uli's mother's Moecks. WOW!! It was fantastic! We played for about two hours, had some lunch and then hiked over the mountain to the booming metropolis (by comparison) of Bad Aussee. We checked out the Christmas market, then went back to the house for more music. Uli invited some close friends over for a mini-concert. There was schnapps, music, champagne and cheesecake!! What's not to love?
It snowed most of the time that we were there, but once we came back to lower elevation Salzburg, it turned to the usual gray and rainy day. But it didn't matter. It had been a great weekend and not even wet foggy weather could dampen our spirits!