In Germany, Schlager music is known for its carefree-happy-go-lucky pieces of pop music in which instrumental music accompany a singer crooning lyrics about something pleasant or sentimental, or as one website put it, singing about being on holiday, country living, life on the Autobahn, living with animals, and living with animals on the Autobahn. In her hilarious article on the topic, writer, Rebecca Schuman, calls Schlager Germany’s most embarrassing musical genre…”a form of pop so insipid and saccharine that it is possible the Communists built the Berlin Wall to keep it out.”

Be that as it may, the musical style has many fans, and one of the most prominent artists of the genre right now is Hansi Hinterseer:

That is a Saint Bernard you saw appear with Hansi, but more on that in a bit.

Hansi Hinterseer could have rested on the laurels of his earlier career. The son of Olympic gold medalist in slalom, Ernst Hinterseer, Hans also became a member of the Austrian ski team and won six alpine skiing World Cup races in the slalom and giant slalom, as well as the overall giant slalom contest at the 1973 Alpine Skiing World Cup, and the silver medal at the world championship in 1974. He also participated in the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck.

Hinterseer found a new career in the early 1990s as a singer in the schlager genre, and with his boyish good looks and a decent set of pipes, he quickly earned a following.

Now about the dog. The Saint Bernard was surprising only because a Bernese Mountain Dog named, “Quincey von Wiesmadern,” more typically has appeared with Hansi in various videos such as the one below:

And then there are the musical videos like this one (Quincy appears at the :49 mark):

Quincey passed away at the age of eleven, and his daughter, “Gina,” succeeded her father in video productions with Hansi. Sadly, Gina passed away this past year, and Hansi, her owner, announced his loss in an emotional Facebook post:

He wrote, “What a wonderful memory that we saw each other a few days ago and had a good time together in the snow. Now Gina has fallen asleep. In June she would have been 13 years old.”

We all know how Hansi felt and offer condolences.

The image of Hansi Hinterseer with Quincey and Gina appeared in a 2013 calendar by the artist agency König, and as there was no copyright notice on the page, we share it here in the “fair use’ interest of educating our readers about this breed and its association with this musical form.