The Tower Brass

 

The holiday season is behind us now, but Backnang citizens have one festive tradition that accompanies them throughout the year: the tradition of the tower brass. From the top of our city’s most famous landmark, the St. Michael’s tower, five intrepid musicians brave wind and weather at least once a week to awaken the sleeping town from its slumbers by playing a selection of Lutheran chorales and beloved folk tunes into all four corners of the Swabian sky.

Beautifully clad in costumes that harken back to their medieval beginnings and proudly inured against the trials of wielding ungainly instruments up a narrow staircase which in turn winds past enormous sleeping bells, these musicians take their heritage seriously. As early as the 13^th century, tower guardians were central features of urban life. Charged with ringing the hours and sounding the alarm in case of fire, these men, who resided in narrow keeps above the city with their families, were also trumpeters who marked feast days and ceremonies with their fanfare.

The alarm function persisted into the twentieth century, but after World War I, the role of tower watchman was distilled into its more ceremonial aspect, and it is in this incarnation that Backnang reestablished the tradition in 1870. Every Sunday morning, without fail, the brass musicians appear on the balustrade and fill the air with sound. While they play, some sleepers may turn sweetly over in their beds while early birds on the cobblestones below stop to listen, necks craned in hopes of spotting a flourish of color from the tower above. Occasionally, downtown apartment dwellers have themselves been spotted hanging a telephone out the window, eager to share with relatives who live in less fortunate climbs the sonorous joy of Sunday mornings in Backnang city.