Michael Bredl


Michael Bredl was a German Volksmusik musician and collector, publisher, teacher and the first Volksmusik conservator in Bavarian Swabia in the region of Allgäu.

Life

Michael Bredl Michl grew up in the Bavarian Forest, in Lower Bavaria. The family with 13 children sang and played music a lot. In 1931 there was the first Lower Bavarian youth singing in Landshut and Bredl won the first prize together with two brothers. Since this time Kiem Pauli has been promoting the Bredl brothers and a lifelong friendship has developed. Michael Bredl was a singer and played virtuoso zither, in addition to violin, wind instruments and piano. He often appeared onstage together with Pauli.
After 1945 Pauli brought Bredl as a teacher to Eggenthal near Kaufbeuren. There he founded the first rural singing and folk music school in Bavarian Swabia. In 1957, at the request of Alfred Weitnauer, who was at that time Swabian Heimatpfleger, Bredl was employed as a teacher in Bad Hindelang. Here too, he immediately founded a group of singers and musicians.
The Alphorn had not been known in the Allgäu for a long time until Bredl had discovered the alphorn on old motifs from the Allgäu in 1958. This proved that the Alphorn had existed in the Allgäu region a long time ago. In 1960 the brothers Albert and Herbert Wechs from Hindelang started to build alphorns again in the Allgäu. Bredl was the first folk musician in the Allgäu to play the alphorn again. Today an Alphorn tradition in the Allgäu has developed from that. Bredl has also contributed to the fact that the rare Allgäuer scherrzither, an ancient local form of the zither, has become better known again. In 1971 he conducted the first seminars for Scherrzither.
From 1965 to 1967 Bredl was the first full-time folk music custodian in Bavarian Swabia. He was released from teaching. He systematically collected and published Swabian folk music. Thus the Volksmusik archive of Swabia was created in Krumbach. This later became the Folk Music Counselling Office, which led Bredl until 1998.

Publishing

Music sheets