A Man on an Unusual Mission: Bringing the Alphorn Back to France
In a former silk weaver’s workshop in Lyon, a carpenter and trained musician is breathing new life into an instrument that was on the brink of extinction in France.
Dear Friends,
Late spring is a time of celebration in the Alps, when festivals large and small welcome the gloriously green, all-too-brief summer season. One of the most beloved traditions still practiced in the region today are the transhumance festivals, marking the occasion when herders drive their flocks to higher pastures for the warmer months. At these events, and a few others, one might still hear the sounds of the iconic Swiss alphorn, an ancient herder’s instrument used for centuries to summon livestock, or send messages across vast alpine valleys.
Today, the alphorn is making an unexpected return—not in its native Switzerland, but in France. Lyon-based writer Anna Richards introduces us to Sandro Faïta, a musician and craftsman determined to breathe new life into a fading tradition, one handcrafted alphorn at a time.
We hope you’ll enjoy reading: “A Man on an Unusual Mission: Bringing the Alphorn Back to France.” It was written by Anna Richards and photographed by Michelle Tucci. (And don’t miss the short clip at the end of the story, of Sandro playing one of his alphorns.)
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Todd Oppenheimer
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A Man on an Unusual Mission: Bringing the Alphorn Back to France
by Anna Richards
The sound of an alphorn can carry up to 6 miles, and for centuries, this was how herders would communicate with each other across the high alpine valleys of Switzerland and France, or call their cattle back from grazing.
When Sandro Faïta blows into the mouthpiece of one of his alphorns, inside his workshop in central Lyon, I expect a deafening blare to come out and reverberate from the half-built wooden furniture stacked along the walls. I’m surprised when the note emitted doesn’t seem loud at all, but soft and velvety in quality.
Shepherding is now a rarified career, and technology has erased the need to call a friend 6 miles away using a woodwind instrument, which means the 21st-century demand for alphorns in France is pretty slim. Faïta, 52, and his business partner, Cyprien de Breuvand, 33, who together form Resonance Bois, are among the last alphorn makers in the country. Curiously, that’s not the case across the border: The alphorn is a Swiss national emblem, and demand for alphorns in Switzerland is higher today than when they were used for their original purpose by herdsmen. The alphorn’s renaissance, both in Switzerland and in Faïta’s own revival project, stems from repurposing them as musical instruments.
“When I first came across the alphorn, I never intended to make them,” says Faïta.
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