Weilling Land und Leute – ein Bauernroman von Max Maetz

In 1972, the farmer’s novel “Weilling Land und Leute” was published, written by the Linz writer Karl Wiesinger.

There was no cable television in Upper Austria in the 1970s. People in the countryside sat outside their houses and talked to passing neighbours, telling each other gossip. Who had bought which tractor, who had travelled where with the tractor, who had got under the tractor.

The most spectacular live acts were fire-watching and accident-watching. Together they drove to the neighbouring village when a farmhouse burned down after being struck by lightning and only drove home when the fire brigade had managed to extinguish the last smouldering beams.

In Max Maetz’s novel, the farmers walk to the “blekboint”, an accident-prone, sloping motorway bend, while working and wait for the next accident…

As the novel is set in the so-called “Brucknerland” around St Florian, the musical accompaniment is provided by the historical line-up of the so-called “Linz violinists” (2 violins & double bass).

There is historical evidence that Anton Bruckner played in exactly this formation as 2nd violinist with friends during his first employment as an assistant teacher in Windhaag near Freistadt. Some of these country dances have been rescued from oblivion and will be performed on this evening.