(Swed. Sverige).
Country in northern Europe. It occupies the central part of Scandinavia, sharing frontiers with Norway to the west and Finland to the east; it is separated from Denmark by the Øresund strait to the south-west. Southern Sweden was united under one king in the 12th century, and by the Union of Kalmar (1379) Sweden, Norway and Denmark were united under Danish rule. With the accession of Gustav Vasa (1523) the country became independent and subsequently rose to a peak of imperial power in the 17th century, when its provinces included Finland (which had long been under Swedish rule), Livonia, Pomerania and Bremen; most of these were lost under the Peace of Nystad (1721).
FOLKE BOHLIN/R (I, 1, 2), AXEL HELMER/R (I, 3, 4), HANS ÅSTRAND (I, 5; bibliography with LEIF JONSSON), MARGARETA JERSILD, MÄRTA RAMSTEN (II)
Archaeological finds in Sweden include pre-Christian musical instruments, the most famous of which are the bronze trumpets of about 1300–500 bce. Among other discoveries are flutes, animal horns, rattles and a few bridges from string instruments, some of which were probably imported. Stone carvings showing instruments have been interpreted as depicting religious ceremonies; little is known about other functions that music may have had. In the 11th century Christian missionaries introduced a new musical culture. Liturgical chant, at first following English models, soon became dominated by continental influences. As the ecclesiastical organization developed, the needs of church music were also taken into account, and detailed regulations for cathedral music are known from several dioceses. Monasteries were also important musical centres, parts of the monastic liturgical traditions being taken over by the lay churches; the Dominicans were especially influential, above all in Finland, the eastern part of the kingdom. Similarly, an originally Swedish tradition was taken to other countries, including England, by the Order of the Holy Saviour, founded in the 14th century by St Bridget. All convents of the Brigittine order used a special Office in honour of the Virgin, the cantus sororum, consisting of seven hystoriae, one for each day of the week. Compiled by Petrus Olavi, the Office was set mainly to well-known Gregorian chants, as was Swedish liturgical poetry in general. Gregorian chant of medieval Sweden survives in several complete manuscripts and in thousands of fragments. A gradual printed in Germany, probably in 1493, for the diocese of Västerås, has been reprinted in facsimile as Graduale arosiense impressum (1959–65).
The Reformation did not destroy the Gregorian tradition, even though much of it was abandoned because of the introduction of non-biblical texts. Although parts of the liturgy, such as the Ordinary of the Mass, were translated into Swedish, singing in Latin continued, at least in cities with schools; while the State deprived the Church of its economic means and cathedral music could not be maintained, sacred music remained an important subject in schools. In order to revive the Latin school song repertory in Sweden the young Finnish-born student Theodoricus Petri Nylandensis edited his famous collection, Piae cantiones (Greifswald, 1582).
Parisian Ars Antiqua polyphony seems to have been performed in Uppsala Cathedral in the 13th century, for the choir statutes of 1298 record occasions on which organum was sung. There are remains of several organs from about 1400, but they seem not to have been used for polyphonic music; a more modern type is represented by an organ in Malmö Museum, built about 1500 for the church of St Petri in Malmö. A report of a church festivity in 1489 at the Brigittine Vadstena Abbey mentions polyphonic music (discantus in nova mensura), although Bridget herself had forbidden polyphony; it was performed by schoolboys and by the cantores of Sten Sture the Elder, who then governed the country.
Court music did not become firmly established until Gustav Vasa freed Sweden from the union with Denmark in the early 16th century. Gustav and other members of his dynasty were very interested in music; his son Erik XIV was a composer, and a fragment of a Latin motet by him survives. As Duke of Finland Erik's brother Johan kept his own court musicians in Åbo (Turku), and as King of Sweden he later tried in various ways to enrich the new Swedish liturgy and its music, although without lasting results.
In the many cities founded after 1600 musical life was regulated by the guild system, the church organist being the leading musician. Singing, especially at funerals, was still an important source of income for the schools, although school music became predominantly instrumental. At Uppsala University some of the printed dissertations were on musical subjects. In the last quarter of the 17th century collegia musica were organized by the professors Olof Rudbeck and Harald Vallerius, who were also responsible for the musical editing of the new official hymnbook (1697), which had a figured bass for most of the melodies. It was the first Swedish hymnbook with all the melodies printed, although, since 1530, there had been many hymnbooks containing only texts; a 1586 edition contains the earliest Swedish music printing. Congregational hymn singing became more widespread during the 17th century. The Thirty Years War (1618–48) had a great effect on musical life of the country, partly through instruments and music taken as war booty. Many German organists, organ builders, composers and other musicians went to Sweden. Most important of the German court musicians who went to Stockholm about 1620 was the composer Andreas Düben, a pupil of Sweelinck and the first of a dynasty of Hovkapellmästare.
In 1646 Queen Christina engaged six French musicians for her court ballets, and it was they who introduced the violin to Sweden. They were replaced in 1652 by an Italian opera company under the direction of Vincenzo Albrici, whose ‘Fadher wår’ (the Lord's Prayer) was the first choral work with a Swedish text. The queen also heard English consort music played by Ambassador Whitelocke's musicians; after her abdication in 1654 she lived in Rome, where Alessandro Scarlatti was among those in her service. During Charles XI's reign the cultural life of Sweden lay fallow. Attempts were made to produce pastoral dramas with musical elements, such as Johans Celsius's Orpheus och Eurydice in the 1680s. But it was not until Nicodemus Tessin contracted Claude de Rossidor's French troupe in 1699 that the first steps towards Swedish opera were taken.
Gustaf Düben (i) succeeded his father as hovkapellmästare and as organist of the German Church in Stockholm in 1663. Among his works the Odae sveticae (1674) was the first song collection with Swedish texts. In five volumes of Motteti e concerti Düben transcribed over 250 pieces of sacred music, mostly Italian, into organ tabulature; he also collected hundreds of works by contemporary German composers such as Buxtehude, Pfleger, Capricornus and Geist. His collection (in S-Uu since 1732) is now regarded as one of the main sources of 17th-century music.
The political changes in Sweden after 1718 had important consequences for the country's musical life. Although the court and the nobility kept their leading positions, the middle class became increasingly influential. In Stockholm, Sweden’s leading musical city throughout the 18th century, the first public concerts were given in 1731 by the Hovkapell; later the ‘Musical Areopague’ of the Utile Dulci society (active 1766–86) arranged some ‘Cavalier Concerts’ (1769–70). Music education was largely restricted to the cathedral schools in various cities. Church music consisted mainly of performances of Passions and oratorios by Pergolesi, Graun and others; the hymnal of 1697 remained the official one for services until 1820–21. During the 18th century writings on musical subjects appeared, culminating in the first book in Swedish on music history, A.A. Hülphers's Historisk afhandling om musik (1773), containing an extensive inventory of Swedish organs.
Opera at first occupied a somewhat secondary position and was in general restricted to court festivities, although many plays with music were performed at smaller theatres. For a long time most of the works were of foreign origin and most of the artists were engaged from abroad. An Italian opera company arrived in 1755 but soon dispersed; however, its leader, the composer F.A.B. Uttini, settled in Stockholm and in 1767 became leader of the Hovkapell. During the reign of Gustav III (1771–92) many projects initiated during the previous decades were realized: the Swedish Royal Academy of Music was founded in 1771, the Royal Opera at Stockholm was inaugurated in 1773, and an operatic style based on the ideas of Gluck was developed under the king's patronage.
Many of the composers living in Sweden were of foreign origin, including H.P. Johnsen, who wrote stage works, instrumental pieces and vocal odes; during the 1770s and 80s the German-born composers J.M. Kraus, J.G. Naumann, J.C.F. Haeffner and G.J. Vogler wrote operas and instrumental works, making that period outstanding in Swedish music history, especially for opera. The most important native composer was J.H. Roman, who in his extensive instrumental production absorbed influences from Handel and from contemporary Italian music; in his Mass he ‘showed the fitness of the Swedish language for church music’. Composers of instrumental music were J.J. Agrell, who lived in Germany from the 1720s, Ferdinand Zellbell (i), A.N. von Höpken and Johan Wikmanson, who wrote fine string quartets and other chamber music (Zellbell and von Höpken also wrote operas). Parody songs became popular, culminating in the works of C.M. Bellman, whose collections were published by Olof Åhlström, the first Swedish music printer and editor of the periodical Musikaliskt tidsfördrif (1789–1834) as well as a composer.
Sweden's political and cultural history reached a low ebb during the decades after the assassination of Gustav III (1792). After 1809 (the year of the new constitution) musical life gradually revived in a new form. The initiative was largely taken over by the middle classes, which, despite many idealistically inspired efforts to promote musical activity, led to the domination of narrow-minded dilettantism. Many new music societies were founded, not only in Stockholm (1800), but also in towns like Göteborg (1809), Visby (1815) and Jönköping (1817). After the mid-century, as communications improved, cities and audiences grew and the demand for higher musical standards became more widespread, professional orchestras and music institutions came into being. With the reorganization of the Stockholm Conservatory in 1866 music education became more firmly established. The cancellation of Åhlström's royal privilege in 1823 opened the way for a number of music printing firms, but many of them were short-lived. Later the music publishing trade was dominated by a few firms, all in Stockholm: A. Hirsch (from 1842), A. Lundquist (1856) and Elkan & Schildknecht (1859).
During the first half of the 19th century the stylistic trends of Swedish composers were determined by a deep veneration for the Viennese Classicists, as well as certain Romantic orientations and a growing interest in folk music that was furthered by the collection Svenska folkvisor (1814–17, edited by E.G. Geijer, A.A. Afzelius and J.C.F. Haeffner) and by many later musicians, among them J.N. Ahlström and Richard Dybeck. At first the amount of instrumental music composed was small; among the most important composers were B.H. Crusell (sinfonie concertanti, chamber music), Geijer (chamber music with piano) and A.F. Lindblad (two symphonies and seven string quartets). The only significant Swedish operas to be staged were Eduard Brendler's Ryno (1834) and Lindblad's Frondörerna (1835); stage music consisted mainly of Singspiele in folk style such as Andreas Randel's ever popular Värmlänningarne (1846). Most of the music composed in Sweden consisted of smaller vocal works, for example lieder by Crusell, Geijer, Lindblad, J.E. Nordblom, Isidor Dannström, J.A. Josephson and Gunnar Wennerberg, and choral music and vocal quartets by Geijer, A.F. Lindblad, O.J. Lindblad and Prince Gustaf. The author C.J.L. Almqvist wrote Songes (‘Dreams’), strange and expressive melodies without accompaniment. The works of Franz Berwald, one of the greatest Swedish composers, found no real sympathy among contemporary musicians and listeners because of their individual and personal style; a deeper understanding was apparent only at the end of the century.
In the 1840s and 50s a number of young Swedish musicians studied abroad, especially at the Leipzig Conservatory, thus introducing influences from new German music, which along with the vital interchanges with Danish and Norwegian music determined stylistic developments during the following decades. Symphonic works were produced in greater number (by Ludvig Norman, J.A. Hägg, O. Byström and Andreas Hallén), as were chamber works (string quartets by Norman, violin sonatas by Emil Sjögren). A tenacious classicism and the influence of the German Romantics form the background to the expansive, sometimes symphonically conceived, works of Fritz Arlberg and Sjögren. On the stage operettas and vaudevilles came into favour, while at the Royal Opera, Stockholm, Wagner's works were performed, beginning with Rienzi in 1865, stimulating great interest and lively debate; Wagnerian influence is especially prominent in the works of Hallén. The operatic works of I.C. Hallström are more in the style of French opera, and his Den bergtagna (1874) was one of many attempts to create a national opera. The outstanding late 19th-century Swedish composer, Johan August Söderman, was notable for his stage music, his intensely expressive ballads, and above all his choral works and lieder.
Towards the end of the 19th century the gradual creation of modern concert life provided a platform for the development of a wider range of musical creativity. Hallén, although belonging to the earlier generation, started this movement in the three main cities with the reconstruction of the Music Society in his native Göteborg (1872), the Philharmonic Society in Stockholm (1885) and the South Swedish Philharmonic Society in Malmö (1902). His isolated activities were followed by the creation of the first symphony orchestras, eventually to replace the operatic Hovkapell, which gave only infrequent orchestral concerts: the Stockholm Concert Society (1902), the Göteborg Orchestral Society (1905) and the much smaller orchestras in Gävle, Helsingborg and Norrköping (1911–12); there were many ‘popular’ concerts. In Stockholm platforms for this expanding concert life were, first, the concert hall of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music (1878), followed in 1926 by the present Konserthus; Göteborg's Konserthus (1935) replaced the wooden hall of 1905.
Against this background, three important composers of contrasting individuality appeared around 1890, revitalizing the somewhat dormant creative life and re-establishing links with European traditions: Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, a fervent Wagnerian but also a symphonist and miniaturist; Hugo Alfvén, who introduced a Straussian brilliance with his symphonies and nationalistic symphonic poems; and the great pianist and conductor Wilhelm Stenhammar, who gradually moved away from nationalism and found inspiration in Beethoven, Brahms, Berwald, Sibelius and Nielsen.
The years before World War I saw a new group of composers moving towards a more cosmopolitan language: Natanael Berg, who wrote several operas (notably Engelbrekt, 1929) and colourful symphonies; Oskar Lindberg, well known as a teacher and church musician; and Kurt Atterberg, who wrote an impressive series of nine symphonies as well as operatic works. Ture Rangström's songs are among the finest Swedish vocal music, while Edvin Kallstenius is noted for his 12-note works. These composers, especially Berg, Atterberg and Lindberg, were responsible for the organization of the Society of Swedish Composers (1918) and of the complementary STIM (Swedish Performing Rights Society, 1923), both of which have played an important part in supporting Swedish composers.
Stronger influence from European movements was introduced by three members of a new generation: Hilding Rosenberg, a symphonist and oratorio composer who linked Expressionism to a Nordic idiom largely independent of nationalism and who became the teacher of a considerable number of younger composers (Karl-Birger Blomdahl, Sven-Erik Bäck, Ingvar Lidholm etc.); Gösta Nystroem, who brought impressionism to Sweden, thereby strengthening the influence of French music; and Moses Pergament, a cosmopolitan of Finnish birth, Russian training and with a Jewish musical background. In the 1930s neo-classicism and French influence became prominent in the works of Dag Wirén and Gunnar de Frumerie, whereas Lars-Erik Larsson turned more to Sibelius and Nielsen. The 1940s saw the breakthrough of modernism with the varied activities of the Monday Group (Blomdahl, Bäck, Lidholm etc.), whose members revitalized Fylkingen (the Society for Contemporary Music, from 1950 part of the ISCM, with a well-equipped special hall for ‘intermedia’ performances, including a small electronic music studio) and created the important radio series ‘Nutida Musik’ and the Electronic Music Studio (EMS, one of the leading computerized studios).
During the 1950s there was a reaction to modernism among a group of Larsson's pupils who promoted a nationalist Romantic revival, influenced by Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Jan Carlstedt founded the concert society Samtida Musik (1960), which reacted against the avant-garde tendencies of Fylkingen and ‘Nutida Musik’; the music of Hans Eklund, Maurice Karkoff and Bo Linde is also retrospective, whereas Gunnar Bucht is a more independent symphonist. Bengt Hambraeus was the first Swedish composer to visit Darmstadt and continental electronic music studios and introduced new styles and ideas to Sweden; Bo Nilsson followed similar paths. Within these groups many individual composers and styles form the complex reality. Among the older generation are Hilding Hallnäs, with Nystroem one of the leading composers in Göteborg; Sven-Eric Johanson, formerly a member of the Monday Group; Erland von Koch, who has pursued Dalecarlia folk traditions; Allan Pettersson, who has written long, Mahlerian symphonies; Åke Hermanson, known for moderately progressive orchestral works; Torsten Nilsson, who has written church music using modern techniques; and Hans Holewa, who brought Schoenbergian dodecaphony to Sweden. Younger composers include Arne Mellnäs; the organ and ‘happening’ virtuoso K.-E. Welin; J.W. Morthenson, noted for his ‘metamusic’; Siegfried Naumann, who renounced his earlier works and started afresh in a radical idiom; and the prolific opera composer L.-J. Werle. There is also an active group of electro-acoustic music composers, including Knut Wiggen, pioneering as leader of the computer studio EMS (created in 1969), L.-G. Bodin, Sten Hanson and B.E. Johnson; after investigating text-sound elaborations these last three composers have gone their own different ways. A younger generation of electro-acoustic composers includes Tamás Ungvary, Akos Rózmann, Ragnar Grippe, Tommy Zwedberg, Rolf Enström, Åke Parmerud, Anders Blomqvist and Bo Rydberg. Ralph Lundsten evolved his more eclectic idiom in his private ‘Andromeda’ studio.
The 1960s produced another group of composers taught by Rosenberg, Blomdahl or Lidholm, among them Sven-David Sandström (later professor of composition at the Swedish Royal Academy of Music), Miklós Maros, Daniel Börtz and Anders Eliasson; subsequently composers such as Hans Gefors (especially with his operas), Pär Lindgren, Mikael Edlund, Anders Hillborg, Thomas Jennefelt, Anders Nilsson, Jan Sandström, Ole Lützow-Holm and Karin Rehnqvist have come to prominence.
Swedish Radio administers a music department, including a symphony orchestra and choirs (initially under Eric Ericson) that have become internationally known. The Institute for National Concerts, founded in 1963, and the Arts Council, 1974 enjoy increasing governmental support. There were 22 regional (formerly military) music corps in Sweden. In 1988 they and the regional offices of the Institute for National Concerts came under the control of local government. Opera companies were established in Göteborg in 1920 (with a new opera house inaugurated in 1994), in Malmö in 1944, and in Umeå and Karlstad in the 1970s. These, along with Levande Musik in Göteborg and Ars Nova in Malmö, exemplify the decentralization of Swedish musical life. In 1971 the private conservatories in Göteborg and Malmö became national music academies.
Even opera, until recently confined to the Royal Opera in Stockholm and less numerous performances in Göteborg, Malmö and elsewhere, has gradually found new platforms. Rosenberg's five operas (notably Marionetter (‘Marionettes’, 1939), Blomdahl's Aniara, the world's first space opera (1959) and Bäck's nō-inspired Tranfjädrarna (‘The Crane Feathers’, 1957) established a modern tradition, successfully continued by Werle (his ‘arena opera’ Drömmen om Thérèse (‘Dream about Thérèse’, 1964), Resan (‘The Journey’, 1969), Tintomara, 1973, Lionardo, 1987, and Animalen (‘The Animal Congress’, 1979)) and Hans Gefors (Christina, 1987, Parken (‘The Park’), 1992, Clara, Paris, 1998). After his TV opera Holländarn (‘Dutchmen’, 1967), Lidholm crowned his career with a setting of Strindberg's Ett drömspel (‘A Dream Play’, 1991) for television. Among younger composers, Jonas Forssell has written successful operas: Hästen och gossen (‘The Horse and the Boy’) at the Norlandsopera (1988), and Riket är ditt (‘Thine is the Kingdom’) for the Vadstena Academy (1991). The internationally famous Drottningholm theatre near Stockholm, built by C.F. Adelcrantz in 1766 and rediscovered by Anje Beijer in the 1920s, performs 18th-century operas using the original wooden machinery and many of the original flats and backcloths. Arnold Ostman, musical director from 1980 to 1991, has made several Mozart recordings based on Drottningholm productions.
See also Drottningholm; Göteborg; Malmö; Stockholm; Uppsala.
H. von Bülow: Skandinavische Conzertreiseskizzen (Berlin, 1882)
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The history of traditional music is in many ways the history of an ongoing dialogue between intellectuals from the middle classes and singers and fiddlers from the rural society. The Swedish middle class society has played an important role in ‘discovering’, saving and reviving the music of the rural society.
Since the beginning of the 19th century there has been a conscious collecting of traditional music in different parts of the country. Several revival movements have taken place, the last one in the 1970s. In addition, folk music expressions mix today, reflecting a sort of world music influenced by emigrant musicians, rock, jazz and music from non-European countries. Traditional musics in Sweden have in fact always been strongly influenced by music traditions from other countries, especially from Central and Western Europe. But repertory, instruments and dances have indeed emerged as a Swedish tradition with characteristic local variations and musical expressions. Certain parts of the country were quick to adopt innovations, particularly the coastal districts and the larger cities. Other areas, such as the province of Dalarna, were much more conservative.
Vocal and instrumental traditions in Sweden must be viewed in a Scandinavian context. Spelmansböcker (fiddlers’ tune books) from the 18th century and the first half of the 19th have much in common in the Nordic area concerning repertory. This is also true regarding texts and melodies in many of the vocal traditions. Fäbodmusik, a peculiarly functional vocal and instrumental music associated with herding in the summer mountain pastures, is of particular interest.
1. Sources, collections and research.
Sweden, §II: Traditional music
Historical research is hampered by the lack of early sources. Though some song texts survive in manuscripts dating from the end of the 16th century, the major work of collection did not begin until prompted by antiquarian interest in the 17th century. The early 19th-century spirit of romantic nationalism inspired the work of collecting and notating melodies. Some of this work was published in E.G. Geijer and A.A. Afzelius’s Svenska folkvisor (‘Swedish folksongs’) in 1814–18. But this interest was almost entirely confined to the medieval ballad; other kinds of traditional singing were largely ignored until the mid-19th century.
The 1870s saw the formation of societies interested in the preservation and study of folk traditions, and large collections of material were received by such institutions. A considerable amount of recording of instrumental traditional music began somewhat later, in particular with the work of A. Fredin in Gotland. Foremost among other collections were Nils Andersson and Olof Andersson, who collected some 15,000 tunes from all but the northernmost parts of Sweden. About half of these were printed in Svenska låtar (‘Swedish tunes’) (N. Andersson, 1922–40). In the 1950s the Swedish Radio and the Svenskt visarkiv (Swedish Centre for Folk Song and Folk Music Research) began recording all types of folk music. Original materials are now kept in a number of state institutions including the Royal Library, the Nordiska Museet, Musikmuseet, Språk -och folkminnesinstictulet and the Svenskt visarkiv, as well as in regional museums and archives. Svenskt visarkiv also receives copies of material from other institutions.
Beside the collections with recorded materials, other materials are possible sources for traditional music. Many thousands of song texts were printed in more than 30,000 surviving broadsides that were printed between the end of the 16th century and the 1920s, including songs from oral tradition and new texts specially written for broadsides. An early source for instrumental music are 18th- and 19th-century spelmansböcker with written repertories of both traditional tunes and modern fashion dances.
Early research was concerned with the problems of origins and early history. Around the middle of the 20th century onwards, research moved away from the question of origins and was more concerned with social function, the development of melodic variants and performance. In assessing materials more consideration is now given to the bearers of tradition themselves or to the collectors.
Historical and socio-musical approaches to the study of Swedish traditional music today is often combined with ideological analysis. The new generation of ethnomusicologists often base their research on fieldwork. This has brought forward new questions and methods, but also new subjects of research, e.g. immigrant musics. Many of the qualified ethnomusicologists today are also active as folk musicians.
Sweden, §II: Traditional music
In Sweden, as in Norway, much music is associated with herding. Traditional methods of intensive cattle breeding once practised in large areas of northern and central Sweden have survived in some isolated areas. Every farm had a fäbod (mountain dairy) around which the animals grazed freely during the summer months, watched over by dairy maids. A particular type of functional music developed. In order to call the cattle or to communicate with other people at a distance, the dairy maid can use a lockrop (herding call; see ex.1), sung in a kind of falsetto at a very high pitch, by stretching the throat muscles taut. This herding call can be heard over a distance of 4 or 5 km. It may consist of either short phrases or long ornamented melodies, varying according to function and occasion as well as from one district to another. The technique itself is thought to be ancient, and it is also found in other such European mountain regions as the Alps, Pyrenees and the Balkan mountains of Bulgaria.
Signals used to warn of wild animals or to keep them away, were blown on a Lur (ii) (long wooden trumpet) or on a bockhorn, a trumpet made from a horn of a cow or a goat. The horn was boiled, cleaned out and given a number of finger-holes.
Knowledge of Swedish fäbod music is based partly on literary sources and collections made since the 1840s (particularly those of R. Dybeck), and partly on surviving examples of the tradition. Research on herding tunes and lockrop only began in the 1930s when Tobias Norlind examined the developmental aspects of the materials and concluded that a simple call was the original form, and the longer, melismatic calls were more recent. Carl-Allan Moberg presented his studies of herding music in two articles in 1955 and 1959. In the first he dealt with the organization of the fäbod and with the lockrop technique, and in the second he analysed tune structures. Moberg believed fäbod music parallels the alpine kuhreigen. He also showed that the often long and ornamented lockrop is built on a melodic framework, often coloured by contemporary materials, and is thus a product of its time.
Important new research on this music has been carried out in the last decades at Uppsala University where Anna Ivarsdotter Johnson has studied herding calls with the aid of melograms (see Melograph). She has concluded that calls are not formulated to a fixed pattern, but their length and form are determined by their function and by the singer's instinct and ability to vary the phrases in her repertory.
Inspired by field recordings made in the 1940s and later, several young folk musicians have adopted the special lockrop technique and use lockrop in many different musical contexts. Also, contemporary Swedish composers have been inspired by the lockrop, such as Ingvar Lindholm in the Intermezzo from his ballet Riter (1960) and Karin Rehnqvist in her Puksånger-lockrop (1989) for two female singers and kettledrums.
Sweden, §II: Traditional music
Some vocal genres have lived in oral tradition for a long time, and a few types still survive. Much of the material is common in the Scandinavian-speaking area, e.g. the medieval ballad. The ballad genre was originally connected with dancing. With its prototype, the French chanson d'histoire, it made its earliest appearance as part of the medieval courtly romance literature, but spread to the peasantry and became an orally transmitted folksong genre. The ballad, which always has a refrain, has a typically formal and objective narrative style and treats the lives of medieval nobility, medieval Christianity and popular beliefs. Many themes have parallels outside Scandinavia, particularly in the ‘Child ballads’ of the British Isles and North America. The recorded ballad melodies represent many different stages of style, but they have as a whole more of the older features than other types of folksong have, as for example in their more formulaic melodies (ex.2).
Melodies related to those of the ballads are found in various older recordings of singing-games, many of which have refrains. Some singing-games, which survive in contemporary oral tradition owe their survival to their association with modern Christmas festivities and are generally sung as children's games for dancing around the tree. Popular nursery rhymes and lullabies, known as småvisor (‘small songs’), are still well represented in oral tradition but only a few melody types are used for them. The commonest of these is known with the words ‘Ro, ro till fiskeskär’ (‘Row, row to the fishing rocks’). Ex.3 gives one of the many variants of this tune, which also has parallels outside Scandinavia. It is almost identical with the anonymous trouvère song A pris ai qu'en chantant plour.
A few of the lyrical songs that are found in the 16th- and 17th-century songbooks survived in later tradition, though love songs appear not to have reached the public in large numbers until the 18th and 19th centuries. These were almost always sung in a minor key, and their texts were often disseminated in broadsheets (ex.4). Some seasonal songs are found, though not as many as in other countries. These are chiefly associated with the festivities of Boxing Day, Twelfth Night, Walpurgis Night and May Day, and they were performed by young people who went around singing for money.
Along with orally transmitted songs there are a number by known authors, which were chiefly introduced by means of broadsides, but have since passed into oral tradition and have become subject to variation. Some songs by the very popular poet C.M. Bellman from the end of the 18th century gained a wide circulation; his Gustafs skål originated as a Swedish royal anthem but survives today as a singing-game.
In some regions during the 18th century a special tradition of performing Protestant hymns developed, deviating from official versions in the chorale hymnbooks which were influenced by surrounding traditional musics. They are characterized by their melismatic style, in contrast to the syllabic style given in the hymnbooks. The main condition for the development of the musical variants was most likely the absence of accompaniment; older rural parishes seldom had organs in their churches. Outside the church the singing of these folk hymns has been kept alive.
Swedish folk songs were performed as solos or in unison and mostly unaccompanied. There were no professional folksingers. In the older rural society, with some 90% of the population living in the countryside and no sharp borderlines between various social classes, we can take for granted that many traditional songs, e.g. the ‘small songs’, were known and sung by the majority of the people. The very long ballads were on the other hand performed by a smaller number of singers, preferably women representing the rural people in general. Many ballad singers had a deep knowledge of the formulaic style of text and melody and built up their own variants from a store of formulae. The audio recordings of ballads show a very individual performance including a basic pulse of the performance. Many female singers employed a deep alto register. The occurrence of indefinite intervals in ballads, also common in the folk hymns, can be considered reminiscent of older scales.
In traditional song genres the melody types are seldom linked to one specific song or genre, rather they change from text to text. A single set of words was often sung to several different melodies, and a single melody used for several quite unrelated texts. An example of a melody which has held a unique position is Folie d'Espagne; it was sung to a great many texts from the end of the 17th century onwards and is still alive in oral tradition and also as an instrumental tune. Different chronological layers can be recognized in the melodies, the oldest found chiefly among folksongs, while currently popular tunes usually of more recent origin were chosen for broadside songs. For older songs a minor scale with no 6th degree was common in which the melody centred around the tonic. During the 19th century a more harmonic conceptualization of music prevailed probably due to the trend towards self-accompaniment on the guitar, zither or Psalmodikon, a type of bowed box zither usually with one string.
The interest in vocal traditions that started in the 1970s among young people increased during the 1990s. Many folksingers now try to reproduce the repertories and personal performances of older tradition bearers. Folk music groups revive and renew genres such as ballads through the accompaniment of older, reconstructed instruments or through the use of musical style elements from other music cultures.
Sweden, §II: Traditional music
The oldest instrument still in use is the Nyckelharpa (keyed fiddle). Though it is bowed like a violin, the strings are shortened by keys instead of by the fingers (see fig.2). The nyckelharpa has a flat bridge and several drone strings which give the instrument its characteristic sound. It was depicted in medieval church paintings and may date from the 14th or 15th century. In the 20th century the nyckelharpa tradition has been strongest in the province of Uppland in central Sweden. A revival of the instrument started in the 1960s and continues to be a popular and common folk music instrument throughout Sweden with many skilful players.
The violin is the instrument most associated with Swedish traditional music. It was probably in general use among rural populations throughout Sweden by the middle of the 18th century. It remained the most widely used instrument for dancing and ceremonial music until the end of the 19th century, when for various reasons it declined in popularity and its repertory began to die out. Those fiddlers still active at the turn of the century had to compete with the accordion, which gradually succeeded the violin as the most popular instrument for dance music.
The 18th- and 19th-century fiddler was first and foremost a dance musician, and his repertory consisted of the tunes of fashionable dances (e.g. minuet, cadrille and polonaise in the 18th centry, polska, waltz, schottischeand polkett in the 19th century). Fiddlers' notebooks from the 18th century contain a repertory that is rather uniform in Scandinavia, but in the 19th century the development of melodies and playing styles came to vary greatly from place to place. The players were amateurs, and their playing was secondary to their ordinary peasant or artisan occupations. Few were taught to read musical notation or had any classical training. Most of the recorded music was in the keys of A, D and G which could be played using only 1st position. In many areas double stopping and chordings were used, and sometimes scordatura was used to make this easier. Great individual players, such as Lapp Nils (1804–70) of Jämtland in north-west Sweden, could set their stamp on tunes in a wide area over a long period of time; his particular style was marked by its virtuosity, use of harmonics and fast triplets (ex.5).
In some parts of Sweden, particularly the eastern provinces, popular music was influenced by professional musicians and ensembles who performed at manor houses and mills. Similarly, trained church organists helped to introduce the techniques of ‘classical’ music to folk styles. The polska from Gotland (ex.6) is a conscious imitation of Baroque style with its triadic semiquaver figuration. Popular wedding marches borrowed melodies from military music, and in the process the clarinet became a popular instrument, performing the same function with the same repertory of dance and ceremonial music as the violin.
The Polska, a dance in 3/4 time, is derived from the European polonaise. In Sweden its musical development was rich in both rhythm and melody. It superseded and fused with older Swedish melodic material, as can be seen from the types of scales used in many polska melodies. Due to its musical qualities the polska repertory has outlived the dance itself and has always been, and still is, highly esteemed by musicians. The polska also exists as a song type, often with a single verse of nonsense words (ex.7).
During the 20th century instrumental music developed in various directions. During the period of 1910–40 the accordion became the most popular instrument, played either as a solo instrument or in a band with fiddle or guitar. The repertory was no longer restricted regionally; music publishers, the gramophone and radio increased standardization throughout the country. The ‘fiddlers' movement’ which grew up in the early decades of the 20th century maintained the fiddle tradition by establishing competitions and meetings. Fiddlers have organized fiddlers' associations and as a result a growth of fiddle bands which perform in public has occurred.
Since the folk revival in the 1970s many folk music groups have developed, playing different ethnic instruments along with vocal numbers. The repertory is mostly traditional Swedish, but the musical expressions are mixed with elements from jazz, rock or general ethnic music. There is also an obvious historical trend in the choice of repertory (e.g. medieval ballads) and instruments (preferably drone instruments such as the Säckpipa (bagpipe), Vevlira (hurdy-gurdy) and others).
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