When gazing upon a stunning Swiss lake with mountains and waterfalls in the background, the natural soundtrack to this majestic scene, beyond the gentle hum of nature, has to be the alphorn. If you can't afford one yourself, you’d imagine that one made from bits and bobs from around your house or apartment would look and sound terrible. However, as one woman in Graubünden discovered, only half of that statement is true.
According to 20 Minuten, Anna Maria Bott and Bruno Oswald from Lü in the Swiss Alps have perfected the art of playing a cheaper version of the alphorn. Instead of the typical wooden assembly, their horns consist of garden hoses, a traffic cone and a cooking pot. The results, as this now-viral video shows, are astounding:
Our tuneful story begins when a university student from Berlin arrived to stay at Bott’s boarding house, where she would have a peaceful place to write her master's thesis over the winter. As she was staying, she told the pair that she had always wanted to play the alphorn, but couldn’t afford to buy a real one. Oswald told 20 Mintuen that they promised to “put together a simple alphorn for her” made of bits they could find about the house, and the rest, as they don’t say, is music.
Bott told 20 Minuten that she hoped that her now-viral video would entice people to visit the charming village of Lü - which was the highest village in Europe before it was merged with a neighbouring council (Gemeinde). "There's always a lot of people walking through and admiring [her alphorn] music… it is important to me to show that you can find joy in something so simple. It was more than just a gag,“ she concluded.