Vickipedia

RANZ DES VACHES (in German, Kuhreigen), a name applied 10 certain simple native melodies of the Swiss Alps, which are usually sung by the herdsmen, and played by them when driving their herds to and from the pasture, on an instrument called the Alphorn, consisting of a wooden tube somewhat bent, about three feet long, widened out into a bell, and bound by a pitched cord. The associations of pastoral life recalled by these airs to the Swiss in foreign countries, have been said to produce that unaccountable longing for home, or nostalgia, which has been remarked among; the Swiss soldiers abroad. The bands of the Swiss regiments in foreign service have, on this account, to be prohibited from playing the Ranz des Vaches. The Emmenthal, Entlebuch, the Bernese Oberland, the Orisons, Appenzell, and other pastoral districts of Switzerland, have each their respective Ranz des Vaches. A collection of Ranz des Vaches, along with other Swiss melodies (Sammlung von Schweizer Kuhreigen und Volksliedern), was published at Bern in 1818; and these airs are also to be found in the Allgemeines Schweizer Liederbuch,1851. The Ranz des Vaches of Switzerland are ruder in their character than the mountain melodies of the Tyrol, with which they are sometimes confounded.