You have no idea how they do it, but the result is impressive: blowing the Midwinterhorn. It’s that time again, during the first Advent weekend. It is tradition that the blazers come into action again in ‘the dark days before Christmas’.
It happened today in several places in Drenthe. You could dedicate a walk to it in Zorgvlied, for example. An hour, five kilometers long. On the way you passed the blazers, of which 21-year-old Marten Brak is one of them. “I started practicing myself in September last year, on the borrowed horn that we have in the group. I liked it so much that I bought one myself within a month.”
On his head is a cap with a midwinter horn of metal on it. He’s gotten pretty fanatical about it. “I’m now making a horn myself. It’s almost ready, I’m in the finishing phase: finishing and putting wicker around it.” That is of course a nice prospect, such a self-built midwinter horn. But how will it sound? “That’s wait and see, yes.”
The idea that the midwinter horn is an old tradition doesn’t mean young people don’t love it. The much younger young girls Marion and Sigrid are also playing along. They were taken by their father and were caught by the instrument. “A fantastic sound, I think it’s really beautiful,” says Sigrid. “I think it’s nice that you just get such a sound out with your mouth.”