(Nor. Norge).
Country in Scandinavia. The kingdom of Norway came under Danish rule in 1380; the Norwegians seized independence and wrote a new constitution in 1814, but the Kiel treaty forged a union with Sweden in the same year. In 1905 Norway again became a sovereign state.
The oldest archaeological finds of musical objects are bronze lurs (long curved trumpets probably used in cult processions or for signalling) from 1500–500 bce, found both at Revheim in the west and Brandbu in the east, and bone flutes. Wooden musical instruments were found in the excavation of Viking ships dating from around 850 ce. A lyra-shaped harp from Numedal and a sheep-bone fipple flute from Bergen survive from the 14th century. Wood carvings in stave churches of the Middle Ages depict the ancient Norse harp, apparently a kind of lyre, and a sculpture in Nidaros Cathedral (Trondheim) shows a fiddler with a string instrument, probably the old Norse fidla. The Edda, bard poems and the sagas mention the lur as a military instrument, and the fidla, gigia, harp, pipe and trumpet were the instruments of the leikarar (jongleurs).
ARVID O. VOLLSNES (I), REIDAR SEVÅG/JAN-PETTER BLOM (II)
Christianity, introduced in the 10th century, brought Gregorian chant to Norway. The celebration of the life of King Olav (d 1030), the national saint, created a new liturgy and brought pilgrims and church music from central Europe. Olav’s cathedral (begun 1075) in Nidaros (now Trondheim) was an important centre; the archbishopric of Nidaros, established in 1152/3, comprised Norway, Iceland, Greenland, the Faeroe Islands, the Orkneys and the Western Isles of Scotland. A manuscript of around 1230 from the Orkneys contains the Hymn to St Magnus, the earliest example of polyphonic music (two parts, mostly parallel 3rds) from Scandinavia; no evidence has been found of polyphony used in Norway itself during the Middle Ages. During the 12th century cathedral schools teaching Gregorian chant were established in Trondheim, Oslo, Bergen and Stavanger. The Missale nidrosiense (Copenhagen, 1519) and the Brevarium nidrosiense (Paris, 1519) suggest that the Norwegian liturgy was fully elaborated by the end of the 15th century. With the arrival of the Reformation in Norway (1537), much diminishing the importance of Nidaros, and with the king, court and capital far away in Copenhagen, Norway lacked a major centre of cultural activity. Nevertheless some cities thrived; as fish, pelts and timber were exported from medieval times and mining was established in the 16th and 17th centuries, communications improved with central Europe, the Netherlands and England. The larger cities employed organists from the 14th century and municipal musicians by around 1600. The latter worked in large districts and could earn considerable income by sub-contracting their responsibilities. The king tended to bestow these privileges on his own musicians in Copenhagen, who then brought Danish, German and Dutch musical traditions to Norwegian cities. The Danish-Norwegian kings themselves visited Norway infrequently; their officials there were mostly Danish, though some Norwegians were educated in Denmark and came back as civil servants or clergy. Few Norwegian composers are known from this period; Caspar Ecchienus (fl late 16th century) and Johann Nesenus (d 1604, active in Göttingen) are among the earliest Norwegian composers of polyphonic music known by name. Most public musical events took place in churches and used music by foreign composers.
During the 18th century various private societies were formed for entertainment, including theatre and music. Members performed themselves, sometimes with visiting musicians. The oldest such society still in existence is the Musikselskab Harmonien in Bergen, its orchestra (now the Bergen PO) established in 1765. J.D. Berlin, whose family were active in Trondheim as performers and teachers, wrote the first Danish-Norwegian music textbook, Musikalske elementer (Trondheim, 1744).
The brief independence of 1814 encouraged the movement for a national Norwegian culture. The local traditions of the inhabitants of the mountains and valleys, including their music, became the subject of intense interest for the upper classes. Depictions of national costumes were popular, poetry and stories were written down, songs transcribed and traditional fiddlers invited to the capital. Some foreign composers, among them G.J. Vogler, began to quote or imitate traditional Norwegian music in their works; Waldemar Thrane was the first Norwegian to do this, in his Singspiel Fjeldeventyret (‘Mountain Adventure’), which was also the first Norwegian opera. Enthusiastically received, it had its première in 1825 in Christiania (now Oslo), and was given in Bergen and Trondheim soon afterwards. One of the most visible champions, in Norway and abroad, for Norwegian culture was the virtuoso violinist and composer Ole Bull. He used traditional music in his compositions and improvisations, gave concerts together with musicians playing the Hardanger fiddle and dancers in national costume, and established in Bergen the Nationale Scene (1850), the first theatre to use Norwegian rather than Danish as its main language.
During the first half of the 19th century there was no academy of music or conservatory in Norway; the only music education available to the general public was undertaken by the bands of the military services. Otherwise, young musicians studied abroad, some in Paris – among them Thomas Tellefsen, a pupil and friend of Chopin – and some at the Leipzig conservatory (established 1843), notably Halfdan Kjerulf, Edvard Grieg and Johan Svendsen, all of whom later developed a strongly national Norwegian idiom in their compositions. From the 1840s there was a steady increase in the number of professional musicians and musical organizations, and a great movement in the founding of male choirs, beginning among students and spreading to artisans, clerks and labourers. Every notable Norwegian composer of the period wrote for male choir. Later in the century mixed choirs also flourished and there were large choral festivals; nationalist ideology permeated the choral movement and its music, adding force to the country’s slow struggle towards freedom.
Beginning in 1841 the musician and scholar L.M. Lindeman published a number of books of piano or vocal arrangements of traditional Norwegian tunes he had collected. These became a major source for composers. Kjerulf, Grieg and Svendsen arranged and quoted the melodies and dances in their works; they also developed their own idiomatic uses of the music’s characteristic tonal, melodic and rhythmic features, and the stylistic traits of the resulting compositions came in turn to be regarded as typically Norwegian. Grieg was inspired by the nationalist enthusiasm of Ole Bull and of the young composer Rikard Nordraak (who composed the Norwegian national anthem, ‘Ja, vi elsker dette landet’). Grieg’s Norwegian ‘colour’ appealed not only to Norwegian audiences but to those abroad, helped by the Romantic notion of his music stemming from the exotic and unspoilt country on the border of Europe. Towards the century’s end the composer Johan Peter Selmer was noted for making his own use of the Norwegian idiom. Music in Norway was also responding to other influences. Agathe Grøndahl (also a well-known pianist) wrote songs and piano music reminiscent of an earlier Romantic style. Christian Sinding’s chamber music and symphonic works, and Gerhard Schjelderup’s operas, earned their reputations abroad. By the end of the century improvements in church music were evident, helped by Lindeman’s establishment in 1883 of an organ school in Christiania which in 1894 became a fully-fledged conservatory.
Around the time of World War I, while a number of older composers such as Johan Halvorsen were continuing in a Romantic tradition, the younger generation returned from Berlin and Paris with ideas on different kinds of modernism. Some wished to keep contact with the national musical idiom but without slavishly following Grieg’s example. This tension between the modern and the national resulted in some interesting music between the wars. Among the leading radicals were Fartein Valen, a lyrical atonalist, and Pauline Hall, who began as a kind of Impressionist; neither ever wrote music that could be called characteristically Norwegian, whereas Ludvig Irgens-Jensen used traditional and modal idioms. David Monrad Johansen, Harald Saeverud, Geirr Tveitt and Klaus Egge also included traditional elements in their works; Eivind Groven collected traditional melodies, mostly Hardanger fiddle tunes, and integrated them into his compositions.
Between the world wars music life in Norway changed rapidly. Music became part of the curriculum in all schools and a score of school bands and state and municipal orchestras were organized. Recorded music and radio spread the influence of jazz and popular music of Anglo-American origin, partly at the expense of German waltzes and operetta, but also at that of ‘classical’ concert music. Young composers after World War II rejected Romantic music, and inasmuch as the Nazis had made sinister use of elements of traditional Norwegian culture, ‘national’ music was not in vogue. Composers went to Paris or Darmstadt to study. Various types of neo-classicism were dominant, and a few composers tried 12-note techniques. From around 1960 influences also came from eastern Europe, particularly Poland. The resulting pluralism persisted through the rest of the century. In the 1950s a revitalization of church music began. Composers central to this were Knut Nystedt and Egil Hovland. Both were also noted for their secular music, and together with the radical Finn Mortensen and the more moderate Johan Kvandal they opened the way for modernist tendencies coming from the rest of Europe and the USA. The Norsk Jazzforbund was founded in Oslo in 1953. Maj and Gunnar Sønstevold were the leading composers of film music, the latter also a champion of electric instruments and electronic music. Arne Nordheim won acclaim for his multimedia work and music for television and the stage. Edvard Fliflet Braein and Antonio Bibalo were among the most prominent composers of theatre music, both enjoying success abroad.
Around 1970 some modernist composers such as Kåre Kolberg and Alfred Janson embarked on a ‘new simplicity’, joined by younger composers including Ragnar Søderlind. The teachings of Finn Mortensen brought out different styles in Magne Hegdahl, Olav Anton Thommesen and Lasse Thoresen. Among the younger generation, Håkon Berge (b 1954), Cecilie Ore (b 1954), Rolf Wallin (b 1957), Nils Henrik Asheim (b 1960), Asbjørn Schaathun (b 1961) and Gisle Kverndokk (b 1967) have won recognition abroad.
From the early 1970s the government pursued an active policy on music. A new pedagogical structure was set up, comprising every age from pre-school to adult. Most communities have their own music schools, and each region its conservatory and teachers’ college that includes music education. The State Academy of Music was established in 1973. Music education and research at university level have broadened, and music libraries and collections (including those of traditional music) improved. The national government funds the symphony orchestras of Oslo and Bergen and the National Opera (established 1959, based in Oslo), and joins the county governments in supporting a further five orchestras, a few contemporary music ensembles and a score of festivals. Some smaller groups and chamber orchestras are funded by the Norwegian Cultural Council. NorConcert (founded in 1967 as Rikskonsertene) is a state agency responsible for producing and supporting concerts and other musical events all over the country, giving priority to music for young people and producing teaching materials in coordination with concerts. The Norwegian Music Information Centre documents and distributes Norwegian music, including scores and recordings.
See also Bergen; Oslo; Trondheim.
J.G. Conradi: Kortfattet historisk oversigt over musikens udvikling og nuvaerende standpunkt i Norge (Christiania, 1878)
A. Lindhjem: Norges orgler og organister (Skien, 1916, suppl. 1924)
O.M. Sandvik: Norsk kirkemusik og dens kilder (Christiania, 1918)
O.M. Sandvik and G. Schjelderup, eds.: Norges musikhistorie (Christiania, 1921)
O.M. Sandvik: Norsk koralhistorie (Oslo, 1930)
I.E. Kindem: Den norske operas historie (Oslo, 1941)
K.F. Brøgger: Trekk av kammermusikkens historie her hjemme (Oslo, 1943)
H.J. Hurum: Musikken under okkupasjonen (Oslo, 1946)
A. Hernes: Impuls og tradisjon i norsk musikk, 1500–1800 (Oslo, 1952) [with Fr. summary]
I. Bengtsson, ed.: Modern nordisk musik (Stockholm, 1957)
K. Lange and A. Østvedt: Norwegian Music (London, 1958)
Kulturhistoriskt lexikon för nordisk medeltid från vikingatid till reformationstid, ed. J. Granlund (Malmö, 1967)
B. Wallner: Vår tids musik i Norden: från 20-tal till 60-tal [Nordic music of today: from the 1920s to the 1960s] (Stockholm, Copenhagen and Malmö, 1968)
J. Dorfmüller: Studien zur norwegischen Klaviermusik der ersten Hälfte des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts (Marburg, 1969)
N. Grinde: Norsk musikkhistorie: hovedlinjer i norsk musikkliv gjennom 1000 år [Norwegian music history: an outline of Norwegian music life in the last 1000 years] (Oslo, 1971, 2/1993; Eng. trans., 1991, as A History of Norwegian Music)
K. Lange: Norwegian Music: a Survey (Oslo, 1971)
J.H. Yoell: The Nordic Sound (Oslo, 1974)
H. Herresthal: Norwegische Musik von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Oslo, 1978)
J.E. Brekke: ‘Om nokre kjenneteikn ved arbeidarkorrorsla i Norge’ [Concerning some characteristics of workers' choral societies in Norway], SMN, viii (1982), 125–41
C.M.H. Jaeger: A Survey of Notable Composers of Organ Music in Norway with Particular Emphasis upon the Organ Works of Egil Hovland (diss., U. of Washington, 1984)
K. Michelsen: ‘Musikkbibliotekene in Norge’, SMN, xi (1984), 81–9
P.A. Kjeldsberg: Piano i Norge: ‘et uundvaerligt instrument’ [The piano in Norway: an indispensable instrument] (Oslo, 1985)
C. Dahm: Kvinner komponerer: ni portretter av norske kvinnelige komponister i tiden 1840–1930 [Women composers: nine portraits of Norwegian female composers 1840–1930] (Oslo, 1987)
S.J. Kolnes: Norsk orgelkultur: instrument og miljø frå mellomalderen til i dag [Norwegian organ culture: instruments and context from the Middle Ages up to today] (Oslo, 1987)
B. Stendahl: Jazz, hot & swing: jazz i Norge 1920–1940 (Oslo, 1987)
A.S. Bertelsen: ‘Salmesangstriden i Norge på 1800–tallet: om melodiform og estetiske prinsipper’ [The 19th-century debate on hymn singing in Norway: rhythm and aesthetic principles], SMN, xvi (1990), 141–59
B. Stendahl and J. Berg: Sigarett stomp: jazz i Norge 1940–1950 (Oslo, 1991)
K. Habbestad and K. Skyllstad, eds.: Norsk samtiddsmusikk gjennom 25 år / 25 Years of Contemporary Norwegian Music (Oslo, 1992)
E. Kolleritsch: ‘Jazzarchive in Norwegen und Schweden’, Jazzforschung/Jazz Research, xxiv (1992), 175–81
H. Herresthal: ‘From Grieg to Lasse Thoresen: an Essay on Norwegian Musical Identity’, Nordic Sounds, ii (1993), 3–9
H. Herresthal: Med spark i gulvet og quinter i bassen: musikkalske og politiske bilder fra nasjonalromantikkens gjennombrudd i Norge [With a kick on the floor and a 5th in the bass: musical and political pictures from the national Romantic breakthrough in Norway] (Oslo, 1993)
H. Herresthal: ‘Nordlichter: norwegische Komponisten nach Grieg’, Fono Forum, x (1993), 28–34
S.J. Kolnes: Norsk orgel-register 1328–1992 (Førdesfjorden, 1993)
E. Ruud: ‘Musikkterapi i Norge’ [Music therapy in Norway], Nordisk tidsskrift for musikkterapi, ii/2 (1993), 29–34
H. Herresthal: ‘100 år med musikk i Den Gamle Logen’ [100 years of music in the Old Lodge], Et hus i Europa, ed. D. Andersen (Oslo, 1994), 86–147
H. Herresthal: ‘Norsk kirkemusikk i nyere tid’ [Norwegian music in modern times], Norsk Kirkemusikk 1994, 7–20
H. Herresthal and L. Reznicek: Rhapsodie norvégienne: Norsk musikk i Frankrike på Edvard Griegs tid (Oslo, 1994)
R. Kvideland: Singen als Widerstand in Norwegen während des Zweiten Weltkriegs [Singing as a form of resistance in Norway during the Second World War] (Essen, 1994)
A.J.K. Lysdahl: Sangen har lysning: Studentersang i Norge på 1800–tallet [Songs like lightning: student singing in Norway in the 19th century] (Oslo, 1995)
R. Wallin: ‘Wired for Sound: Electro-Acoustic Music in Norway’, Nordic Sounds, i (1995), 6–10
H. Herresthal: ‘Panorama de la música y de la educación musical en Norway’, Música y educación: revista trimestral de pedagogía musical, ix/1 (1996), 73–80
M. Kelkel: ‘Les héritiers de Grieg’, Grieg et Paris, ed. H. Herresthal and D. Pistone (Caen, 1996), 221–31
A. Vollsnes: ‘L'influence de la musique française sur la musique norvégienne au début du XXe siècle’, ibid., 199–210
Through the centuries economic and political circumstance have fostered close connections and interdependence between Norwegians, the peoples of neighbouring Scandinavia and other European countries adjoining the North Sea. It is no surprise therefore that Norwegian culture in general, and folk music traditions in particular, give evidence of comprehensive cultural connections and integration with other nations of the area. Nevertheless, in some respects Norwegian folk music displays striking uniqueness in rhythm, tonality and structure, the result of diverse local processes of fusion of new musical ideas, instruments and techniques with older, indigenous musical idioms. This is particularly true for fiddle music identified with traditional courting and athletic dances which, in some areas, survived the influence of the dominant waltz and polka genres of the 18th and 19th centuries. Early vocal music genres and performing styles which have survived over time sufficiently to illuminate important historical connections and developments, have since the 1970s been the object of growing interest and revival.
1. Sources, archives and anthologies.
3. Instruments and instrumental music.
Norway, §II: Traditional music
Apart from some scattered material remnants, early sources are practically non-existent. Little folk music was collected before L.M. Lindeman, encouraged by the national romantic movement, began comprehensive work in 1848. Although he collected primarily with practical uses in mind and published much music in arranged forms, his fieldwork throughout several decades was of a remarkably high standard for his time, and his manuscripts (around 1500 items) remain an important folk music source. Other collections of the epoch were limited to particular local traditions such as that of O.T. Olsen for the northern area and K.D. Stavset for the north-western part of the country. A second wave of collecting began about 1900; O. Sande, Catharinus Elling and Erik Eggen continued to concentrate on vocal music, as Lindeman had done, while O.M. Sandvik also gave attention to the violin music of the eastern valleys. At about the same time several competent Hardanger fiddle players such as Arne Bjørndal, Truls Ørpen and Eivind Groven began collecting and transcribing their own intricate music. Nearly all the important folk music manuscripts are in the University of Oslo library.
The few recordings made before 1945 include a series of gramophone records, principally of Hardanger fiddle music, produced over several decades from 1900, and a few hundred wax cylinders of vocal and fiddle music, made between 1912 and the 1930s by R. Berge, K. Liestöl, Sandvik and C. Leden. With the introduction of the tape recorder, collecting was intensified and sound archives were established, first by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (the NRK), then by the Norsk Folkemusikkinstitutt (now the Norsk Folkemusikksamling, University of Oslo, with affiliated archives in Trondheim and Bergen). At Tromsø Museum there is an archive of folk music from northern Norway, including the Lappish districts. Altogether sound archives contain about 750,000 recorded items. In addition a substantial number of recordings are stored in various local archives. A representative collection of ten CD recordings (329 items), based on the NRK archive, is available on Grappa (GRCD 4061–70). Also available is a substantial and increasing number of cassette and CD recordings of authentic folk music by contemporary performers.
Transcriptions of music for the Hardanger fiddle (covering western Norway and adjoining mountain valleys to the east and south) is published in Gurvin and others (1958–81), altogether seven volumes containing around 2000 dance tunes (slåttar/-er: song; slått: sing). The anthology provides an extensive musical survey of a continuing instrumental tradition in different tuning and metre (6/8, 2/4, 3/4). The edition includes previously published tunes. Transcriptions of instrumental pieces for ordinary violin from the eastern valleys and further north are published in Sandvik and Nyhus. An anthology of four volumes containing about 1900 meticulous transcriptions of dance tunes in duple and triple metre is published by Sevåg and Saeta (1992–7). The volumes also contain general information about local traditions and aspects of style and performance. Sandvik’s collection (1960–64) contains religious folksongs based on Danish-Norwegian hymn writers of the 17th and 18th centuries. In a thorough study Gaukstad presents the folksong repertory collected from the district of Valdres, arranging the material according to literary genres and further grouping it into series of musical variants. In his commentary on the 440 musical items he traced musical parallels in other parts of Norway and elsewhere. An increasing number of monographs on the history of local traditions and biographies of outstanding performers (e.g. Buen; E. and J. Kjøk) constitute valuable sources of information. A general introduction to Norwegian and Saami folk music, edited by Aksdal and Nyhus, contains a set of individual studies covering a wide range of topics.
Norway, §II: Traditional music
Compared with other parts of Europe, Norway does not seem to be particularly rich in early genres. Well-documented types are songs related to animal husbandry, lullabies, religious folktunes, medieval ballads and tunes to metrically standardized poetry known as stev (see below). Ledang (1967) discusses characteristics of vocal performance style.
The impressive cattle-calls known as lokk are seldom heard in their original context; however, a number have been recorded. In its complex form the lokk is a composite of shouting, singing and talking, in an order which may have been established by function. In 20th-century versions the performer, generally a woman, may first address the cows by shouting some introductory words in a deep chest voice, e.g. koma då, båne, å stakkare (‘come now, child, poor thing’), call them by name, using wide vocal leaps, and lastly vocalize melismatically, often as high as e'''; the more archaic of these melismas contain many unusual intervals. These calls, whose prototype was possibly once common to cattle-raising people throughout Europe, are of interest both for their style of performance, a marvellous display of melismatic vocal technique and carrying power, and for the possibly apotropaic function of calling the cows by name. Evidence of considerable variation within the general style indicates that the genre also provided rich scope for individual creativity. Studies by Moberg (1955) and Johnson (1986) of the Swedish lockrop, a tradition basically similar to the Norwegian lokk, contribute significantly to our knowledge about the genre. The lokk and melodic calls known as huving, laling, gukko etc., used by herders to communicate over long distances, are genres particularly associated with transhumant pastoralism in the mountains. Lullabies and nursery rhymes, a vanishing tradition, were common all over the country. The simplest melodies are found among the lullabies of some south-western districts. Their range is normally limited to a 4th or 5th with a 3rd as nucleus, but they exhibit great melodic and rhythmic flexibility within the frame of a few common melodic formulae (Greni, 1960).
Religious folktunes form the largest category of vocal music collected in Norway; they reflect the strong religious movements that gripped the country in the 18th and 19th centuries, frequently to the exclusion and detriment of other forms of musical expression. Differences in style probably indicate chronological periods rather than regional variation. Major or minor melodies from the late 19th century onwards are easily identifiable, although parts of the repertory show clear signs of a traditional re-creative process. Many tunes have retained their ‘modal’ character and are partly syllabic, partly melismatic. Lindeman made the earliest documentation of melismatic singing; his chief informant, A.E. Vang from Valdres, sang him 86 liturgical hymns to texts by the Danish Protestant hymnist Thomas Kingo. This repertory, and probably the song style as well, could be traced back three generations to a famous church singer of the same parish, almost to the time of Kingo himself. Many of the tunes are also based on melodies in Kingo’s Gradual, but differ considerably from the model due to their melismatic character and ‘free’ rhythm. Characteristically duple and triple values are grouped in an irregularly changing pattern which approximates an additive metre, sometimes dependent on, sometimes independent of, the textual structure. Later collections have proved this song style to be a survival, but widely dispersed and vital enough to have been set to religious texts of 19th-century origin. Parallels have been found in the Faeroes, Denmark and Sweden, but the origin of the style has not been determined. Greni (1956) demonstrates how melodies of early Protestant hymnals are transformed by the folk tradition to constitute sets of clearly distinct local variants.
The strong position of religious folktunes until the mid-20th century was partly due to extra-liturgical religious practice in domestic settings. While many of the tunes appeared in early hymnals, there must also have been extensive local composition of melodies for favourite texts. For example, the religious poems of the great Danish hymnist H.A.B. Brorson, published without melodies and of little consequence to Danish religious folksong, evoked an immense response in rural districts of Norway, producing a wealth of settings (with more than 300 registered) many of which are related as variants.
The medieval ballad exists only as a survival. Pan-Scandinavian in character, it is singular in the class of truly epic folksongs. Most traditional ballad tunes were collected in the county of Telemark before 1875 and form an interesting contribution to rural musical heritage. Ballad texts have been a matter of importance to folklorists who conventionally distinguish chivalric and mythical poetry about giants and trolls. The musical material, however, has not so far been thoroughly studied by musicologists. The ballad, historically a dance song (from the Latin ballare, to dance), once widespread in western Europe, became extinct a long time before the rise of folk music research. Dance-songs (folkeviseleik) in present Norway are choreographed revivals inspired by the living Faeroese tradition and associated with the liberal youth movement.
The stev is a type of Norwegian popular poetry known in two forms, the gammelstev (old stev) and the nystev (new stev). The former is closely related to the ballad in metre and rhyme but occurs mostly in single stanzas, and has a more rigid four-line structure of 4 + 3 + 4 + 3 accented syllables, which is identical with the 13th-century Icelandic rhyme ferskeytla. The collected text material either provides words of wisdom and ethics or appeals to a sense of humour. However, irrespective of poetic content the tunes are all recognizable as variants of those associated with the famous visionary ballad Draumkvedet. The gammelstev was probably common until about 1800 when superseded by the nystev which flourished until the middle of the 20th century, particularly in the Setesdal district where it still thrives. Its textual form is four lines of two nearly identical couplets. Its melodic material includes a variety of pentatonic pitch patterns rarely found in other genres. The material also includes the true ‘tumbling strain’ as defined by Sachs (The Wellsprings of Music, 1962) and melodies based on chains of 3rds. The range varies from a 4th to a 12th (ex.1). The stev songs are performed in a seemingly parlando-rubato style with considerable scope for individual variation, but closer scrutiny reveals an asymmetrical rhythmic mode whose basic unit consists of two unequal beats, the shorter followed by the longer. Evidently this comparatively young poetic genre has assimilated musical elements of considerable age and variety. Sandvik’s booklet (1952) on melodies from Setesdalen contains a representative collection of stev melodies. With the exception of some smaller survey studies, the material has not so far been the object of thorough and systematic musicological analysis (Sevåg, 1987).
Norway, §II: Traditional music
A great variety of instruments such as rattles, bullroarers, clappers and whistles which had practical or magical functions have been almost totally forgotten. Wind instruments with reeds are generally scarce. Bagpipe music does not exist in folk tradition, but the instrument is mentioned in a couple of historical sources. In a local dictionary of 1646 from Sunnfjord the dialect term Belg-Pijpe is translated Secke Pijpe (bagpipe) while in 1849 a named person from Valdres was supposed to have played bagpipes at a festival in Christiania (Oslo). Pictorial illustrations of bagpipes cannot be taken as evidence as they might have been borrowed from other cultures. The main single-reed instruments are the halm-pipe (an idioglot straw pipe) and the animal horn, with a reed of juniper wood bound on to the narrow end which is cut obliquely. This use of separate single reed predates any possible influence from the modern clarinet, but its distribution suggests that it is not prehistoric, possibly not even medieval. The lips do not touch the reed in performance. The modern clarinet became common in many districts after 1800, primarily as a dance instrument, often played with fiddle or drum (Aksdal). Double-reed instruments are even more rare: apart from the dandelion stalk, only the bark oboe has been used, made by winding up a long strip of bark and fitting it with a double reed made from a short, narrow tube of bark, thinned out and pressed together at one end.
The more varied lip-reed family consists of wooden trumpets (lurs) and animal horns; they have had many practical purposes including being played by herdsmen to scare away wild animals and round up cattle, a practice which ended in the late 19th century. Of the several types of lur, short ones (30 to 40 cm) are made from a piece of wood hollowed out to give a comparatively wide conical bore; only the fundamental can be sounded. Longer ones (60 to 200 cm) are made by splitting a piece of wood, hollowing out the two halves and fitting them together again. Most longer lurs (90 to 150 cm) have a range similar to the bugle’s while the longest (150 to 200 cm) were generally played in a very high register, their melodies resembling those played on the large alphorns in other parts of Europe (see ex.2). Animal horns with finger-holes appear to have been used in prehistoric times in Scandinavia. As Sevåg (1967, 1972, 1973) has noted, most of the more recent horns have three or four finger-holes and their range is rarely more than a 5th.
Horns made out of wood or animal horn have traditionally been particularly associated with mountain herding and used as alternatives to the vocal lokk and huving mentioned above.
Norwegian flutes are all of the fipple type, ranging from one-note whistles of bark and bone (used by trappers to imitate animals) to fully developed recorders. Some medieval bone flutes with finger-holes survive; similar types were made and used until about 1900. Imported recorders appeared in the countryside probably around 1700 and were imitated locally as long as shepherds used such instruments (i.e. until c1930). Although the decorative appearance of the Baroque recorder recurs in almost all the home-made flutes, their folk origin is obvious: all are made in one piece; the finger-holes are of equal size and mostly equidistant; the bore and finger-holes are often burnt after the boring; no two instruments, even by the same maker, are exactly the same length. Despite their apparently extensive use until the 20th century, almost no traditional flute music has been transcribed or recorded. The seljefløyte (a long, overblown willow-bark flute without finger-holes) attracted special interest from the 1920s, when Groven suggested that it fundamentally influenced the intervallic and melodic structure of Norwegian folk music as a whole, a scarcely tenable hypothesis which nevertheless initiated and influenced a considerable amount of research.
The jew’s harp existed in Norway from the Middle Ages and continued to enjoy respect as a folk instrument until the mid-20th century. Today it is the object of growing interest. It was normally played by men, and the repertory consisted mainly of dance-tunes. Among the few recordings of various local styles, and among living sources, most show a remarkable technique. Patterns of strokes on the vibrating metal tongue, generating legato/portamento effects and complex syncopating rhythms, are generally analogues with typical features of the fiddler’s bowing. Ledang (1972) concluded from a study of its acoustics that the jew’s harp, usually classified as an idiophone, might as well be classified as a free aerophone.
Evidence of medieval string instruments is scarce. A seven-string lyre from Numedal, probably late medieval, is the only specimen of its kind. A single medieval sculpture on a cornice of Trondheim Cathedral indicates that bowed lyres (stråkharpa in Swedish), surviving in eastern Finland and among the Swedish-speaking population of Estonia at the turn of the century, were once widely distributed throughout Scandinavia (Anderson). Of the eight harps preserved in museums, all are crudely made with 12 to 19 strings, and a few date from the period 1681–1776 (see fig. 1). All performance tradition is extinct, although literary evidence (c1600) suggests that the harp was a folk instrument and was possibly played as such in parts of Norway during the late Middle Ages. Apparently it was last played in Østerdal in the early 19th century. The langeleik, a type of zither, resembles the Scheitholt of Praetorius’s time, having only one melody string and between three and seven drone strings. It was apparently well established in both town and country districts around 1600, and until the mid-19th century was the most common instrument for domestic rural entertainment. Thereafter it rapidly became obsolete except in Valdres, where an unbroken tradition persists and has enabled thorough documentation of langeleik music. The playing technique differs considerably from that of similar instruments outside Norway: the middle three fingers of the left hand stop the melody string, and also rapidly strike (on ascending) and pluck (on descending) the notes between the rhythmic plectrum strokes of the right hand (see fig.2). The melodic idiosyncrasies of langeleik music may be related to this technique. The tuning of the langeleik is interesting: contrary to expectation, the spacing of the frets on early specimens shows no pattern of large and small intervals, and comparison of several examples shows that the scale patterns cannot be reduced to a single formula. In the 1920s, when the problem of scale, mode and neutral tones was the focus of much Norwegian research and discussion, Eggen attempted an evaluation of langeleik scales; Sevåg (1974), using a greater number of early instruments, concluded that from a large number of langeleik scales a heptatonic scale structure with a relatively fixed framework of tonic, 5th and octave can be abstracted. Other intervals vary as much as 60 cents, but no interval is smaller than a somewhat short three-quarter-tone. This suggests an early idiom of scale and mode which Sevåg termed anhemitonic heptatonism, but the theory needs to be verified by analysis of recorded material, preferably vocal, in which the flow of melody is relatively unrestricted. Despite the long-established dominance of the diatonic system, a small group of recorded folksingers has an authentic archaic singing style which seems to conform in almost every detail to the ‘laws’ of anhemitonism and variability.
The violin became the main folk instrument in Norway during the 18th century. Historical and material sources, however, indicate that violin-like, and possibly earlier types of bowed instruments, were known in Norway before 1600. Fiddle music, however, developed in two different directions, based on two types of instrument: the normal violin, used throughout most of the country, and the hardingfele (Hardanger fiddle), played principally in western Norway from Hardanger to Sunnfjord and in the central Norwegian valleys. This distribution has remained fairly consistent. While the demand for violins was mainly satisfied by imported instruments, the Hardanger fiddle was built solely by Norwegians, of whom merely a handful were professional after about 1860. It generally differs from the violin in a wealth of ornamental detail, short neck and fingerboard, long f-holes specially cut to cause the two edges to overlap on different planes, and sympathetic strings (see fig.3). Fiddles with sympathetic strings, introduced by Hardanger craftsmen about 1700, or possibly half a century earlier, obtained great popularity to both the north and east of Hardanger, accounting for their name. These early instruments and those dating before 1860 are characterized by their outline (generally narrower and more angular than that of Italian violins, and with a comparatively long lower part), by their highly arched belly and back and their straight or slightly tilted neck.
Evidently many of these construction details and other characteristics such as their ornamentation reflect early violin history: when the Hardanger craftsmen, although familiar with the modern violin, based their production on these earlier forms and principles of construction, they were no doubt responding to the traditional demands of the market. Essential features such as the short neck (appropriate to a finger technique which requires only the first position) and the flat fingerboard and bridge (adapted to a style of playing involving a sustained drone and a technique where movements from high to low strings require relatively small vertical modifications of the bowing right arm) suggest that the Hardanger fiddle was a local adaptation to an indigenous musical idiom. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that an archaic instrumental technique survives not only in Setesdal, where the Hardanger fiddle was first introduced around the turn of the century, but even in places such as Østerdalen and Gudbrandsdalen where the modern violin rather than the Hardanger fiddle is played. Thus both fiddle traditions seem to have shared fundamental instrumental techniques and stylistic features associated with dances whose development pre-dates the introduction of the modern violin by at least two or three centuries (Sevåg, 1971; Blom, 1985).
The earlier duple-time dances are called halling, gangar and rull; those in triple time include the springar, springleik, pols and rundom (all couple dances). Such definitions in terms of duple and triple time are conventional but limited. ‘Triple-time tunes’, as well as the halling, an athletic men’s dance, are found in most districts, whereas the couple dances, gangar (also named halling in some areas) and rull are known only in a few Hardanger fiddle districts. Here the earlier genres outnumber the later, partly owing to the conservative policy of the fiddlers’ organizations during the mid-20th century. In some of the eastern valleys where the violin is played, part of this repertory survives. In general, however, folk violinists have extensively modernized both the repertory (including the waltz, polka and rheinländer) and the style of playing. The simple drone style has given way to plain bowing of the single melody or else to a partly diaphonic style which combines the drone element with elements of common triadic harmony as in the Røros tradition (Nyhus).
The harmonic and tonal aspects of Hardanger fiddle music are more intriguing and should preferably be examined in terms of the drone style of playing (Hopkins, 1986; Sevåg, 1971). Combined with different tuning patterns, this approach gives each tune or group of tunes a characteristic, favoured tonal and harmonic character. Within a particular piece all four strings are frequently used as variable drones below or above the melody. As a consequence the dominant effect of one particular tonic centre is weakened. Moreover, this movable drone technique is frequently expanded by stopping melody and drone string simultaneously with the first finger, causing surprising harmonic effects.
Both fiddle traditions apply the scordatura principle and groups of slåttar within repertories are classified in terms of patterns of tuning. Sources indicate that the re-tuning of instruments was common during weddings, with each tuning having particular ceremonial significance through functional association with the sequence of ceremonial activities. The two traditions also share modal and harmonic characteristics, while their rhythms abound in small but significant ‘irregularities’ typical of Norwegian folk music in general. There is, however, a marked structural difference between the two with regard to dance-tunes in ‘triple time’. Hardanger fiddle tunes tend to be structurally similar to the gangar and halling type, in particular the sequencing of repeated and transformed two-bar motifs, e.g. AA'ABB'ACC'DED'E'EF'. Violin tunes normally have a symmetrical form based on four-bar phrases in binary form AA' BB', also called two-part song form. Likewise, patterns of bowing are markedly different. Duple-time dance-tunes, considered to be the oldest surviving dance music genre in Scandinavia, show characteristic and predictable cycles of bowing, which for ‘6/8 tunes’ have been referred to by composers such as Grieg in terms of a frequently changing hemiola pattern. A small group of such tunes with the exceptional tuning f–d'–a'–e'' (ex.3) is typical by virtue of its most subtle and complex ‘syncopation’. The musical accents, following asymmetrical bowing patterns, combine units of two and three quavers into variously composed groups of six, nine or 12 quavers e.g. 2 + 2 + 3 + 2 + 3 eighths, in strong contrast to and often syncopated against the fiddler’s regular foot-stamping in 3/8 time.
Ex.3 also illustrates the equally unusual tonal and modal character of these tunes. The form, like the rhythm, is based on a number of recurring formulae combined in various, often asymmetrical patterns. The asymmetry which occurs in ‘triple-time’ tunes is generally considered to be the result of structure and phrasing. Metrical asymmetry is a typical feature of ‘triple time’ dance tunes found in all areas of the country (except the fjord districts of western Norway). These asymmetries vary and while they cannot be reduced to precise quantitative relationships within a measure, they tend to occur in a 5–7–6 pattern. What is predictable is that any shortened beat is inversely proportional to the lengthening of the subsequent beat, a principle directly related to the metrical structure of accompanying dance movements. In addition, as a result of the particular practices of local dance traditions, the first beat tends to be shortened in some districts, lengthened in others.
Variety in terms of structure and style often has historic precedent, but owing to the lack of reliable documentation, hypotheses about historical processes can only be speculative. What can be said is that in terms of rhythm and metre, the springar of western Norway are structurally identical to the gangar, but are significantly lighter and faster. In both, the duration and stress of dance-steps and beats are identical. However, as neither follows regular melodies or rhythmic rules which conform to duple- or triple-time metres, it is misleading to classify them in this way. Other ‘spring dances’ follow different asymmetrical three-beat structures which affect the composition of their melodic themes. Dance history would seem to indicate that such patterns relate to the assimilation of continental dances possibly as early as the 16th century. It is thus considered likely that the springar of the western fjords (in common with the gangar and halling) is an older form which enjoyed widespread popularity in the past.
Norway, §II: Traditional music
L.M. Lindeman: Aeldre og nyere norske fjeldmelodier [Old and new Norwegian mountain melodies] (Christiania, 1853–67/R)
C. Elling: Vore kjaempeviser [Our giant songs] (Christiania, 1914)
O.M. Sandvik: Folkemusik i Gudbrandsdalen [Folk music of Gudbrandsdal] (Christiania, 1919, enlarged 2/1948)
O. Anderson: Stråkharpan: en studie i nordisk instrumenthistorie [Stråkharpan: a study in the history of Scandinavian instruments] (Helsigfors, 1923)
E. Eggen: Skalastudier [Studies in scales] (Christiania, 1923)
E. Groven: Naturskalaen [The natural scale], Norsk folkekultur, xiii, appx (Skien, 1927), 1–46
O.M. Sandvik: Østerdalsmusikken [Music of Østerdal] (Oslo, 1943)
O.M. Sandvik: Setesdalmelodier [Melodies from Setesdal] (Oslo, 1952)
L. Greni: ‘Über die Volkstradition in norwegischer Volksmusik’ [On the vocal folk traditions of Norway], [Ethnomusicologie I]: Wégimont [I] 1954, 154–68
C.A. Moberg: ‘Om vallåtar: en studie i de svenske fäbodarnas musikalsika organisation’ [Tunes of the forest: a study on musical organization of the summer pasture dairying], STMf, xxxvii (1955), 7–95
O. Gurvin and others: Norsk folkemusikk, i: Hardingfeleslåttar [Norwegian folk music, i: Hardanger fiddle music] (Oslo, 1958–81) [incl. J.P. Blom: ‘The Dancing Fiddle: on the Expression of Rhythm in Hardanger fiddle music’, vii, 305]
O. Gurvin and others, eds.: Hardingfeleslåttar [Hardanger fiddle music], Norsk folkemusikk, i–vii (Oslo, 1958–81)
L. Greni: ‘Bånsuller i Setesdal’ [Lullabies in Setesdal], Norveg, vii (1960), 13–28
O.M. Sandvik: Norske religiøse folketoner [Norwegian religious folktunes] (Oslo, 1960–64) [with Eng. trans.]
H. Huldt-Nystrøm: Det nasjonale tonefall [The national accent] (Oslo, 1966)
O.K. Ledang: Song, syngemåte og stemmekarakter [Singing, vocal technique and style] (Oslo, 1967)
O.M. Sandvik: ‘Springleiker’ i norske bygder [Springleiker: Norwegian country dances] (Oslo, 1967) [with Eng. trans.]
R. Sevåg: ‘Die Spaltflöten Norwegens’, Studia instrumentorum musicae popularis I: Brno 1967, 74–81
R. Sevåg: ‘Geige und Geigenmusik in Norwegen’, Die Geige in der europäischen Volksmusik: St Pölten 1971, 89–101
O.K. Ledang: ‘On the Acoustics and the Systematic Classification of the Jew’s Harp’, YIFMC, iv (1972), 95–103
R. Sevåg: ‘The Harding Fiddle’, From Bone Pipe and Cattle Horn to Fiddle and Psaltery, ed. M. Müller (Copenhagen, 1972), 18–24
Ø. Gaukstad: Toner fra Valdres [Melodies from Valdres] (Leira, 1973)
S. Nyhus: Pols i Rørostraktom [The pols in the Røros region] (Oslo, 1973)
R. Sevåg: Det gjallar og det laet [The ring and the soft sound] (Oslo, 1973) [on Norwegian folk instruments: idiophones and aerophones]
M. Levy: Den staerke slått [The magic slått] (Højbjerg, 1974)
R. Sevåg: ‘Neutral Tones and the Problem of Mode in Norwegian Folk Music’, Festschrift to Ernst Emsheimer, ed. G. Hilleström (Stockholm, 1974), 207–13, 292 only
B. Aksdal: Med piber og basuner, skalmeye og fiol [With pipes and trombones, shawm and fiddle] (Trondheim, 1982)
K. Buen: Som gofa spølå [The way grandfather played] (Tuddal, 1984)
J.-P. Blom: ‘Hvor gammel er fela’ [How old is the fiddle], Arne Bjørndals hundreårs-minne (Bergen, 1985), 191–208
I. Gjertsen: ‘Vokal folkemusikk på Bestlandet’ [Vocal folk music of western Norway], Arne Bjørndals hundreårs-minne (Bergen, 1985), 211–21
J.-P. Blom and T. Kvifte: ‘On the Problem of Inferential Ambivalence in Musical Meter’, EthM, xxx (1986), 491–517
P. Hopkins: Aural Thinking in Norway: Performance and Communication with the Hardingfele (New York, 1986)
A. Johnson: Sången i skogen: studier kring den svenka fäbodsmusiken [Songs of the forest: studies of Swedish herding music] (Uppsala, 1986)
T. Kvifte: ‘Strøfigurer: en side ved bueteknikken i den norske hardingfele- og felemusikken’ [Figures of bowing: an aspect of the technique of bowing in Norwegian fiddle music], Sumlen (1986), 19–32
R. Sevåg and O. Saeta, eds.: Norsk folkemusikk, ii: Slåtter for vanig fele [Norwegian folk music, ii: Slåtter for the normal violin] (Oslo, 1992–7)
B. Aksdal and S. Nyhus, eds.: Fanitullen: innføring i norsk og samisk folkemusikk [Fanitullen: Norwegian and Saami folk music] (Oslo, 1993)
T. Kvifte: ‘Om variabilitet i fremføring av hardingfeleslåtter: og paradimer i folkemusikkforskningen’ [On variability in the performance of Hardanger fiddle tunes: and paradigms of folk music research], Insitutt for musikk og teater, Universitetet i Oslo: Skriftserie 1994 (Oslo, 1994)
E. and J. Kjøk: Ei spelemannsoge: spelemenn, spel og dans i Ottadalen [A fiddler’s saga: fiddlers, music and dance in Ottadalen] (Otta, 1995)