Sweden - Jämtland

Jämtland and Häriedalen are two of Sweden’s foremost counties in the realm of traditional folk music. These two former Norwegian counties were ceded to Sweden in 1645 but rich relations have been mantained with neighbours on the other side of the fells and the close Norwegian cities were long used by the “Swedes” as provincial capitals because of the poor communications with the rest of Sweden. The folk music tradition has of course been affected by this contact between the peoples, fiddlers have wandered freely between Norwegian and Swedish provinces and many tunes are thus common to both sides of the border and there is also a striking similarity in the fiddle styles.This record comes from the Svenskt visarkiv (The Swedish Centre for Folk Song and Folk Music Research) and presents traditional folk music as played by the eldest generations of fiddlers. All the field recordings have been made since 1968.

On Side A we can hear many melodies composed or played by Lapp Nils (1804-1870), a well renowed fiddler from a family of Lapps. Thanks to Lapp Nils the fiddling of Jämtland reached its high-water mark, in spite of the fact that he, in common with many others, stopped playing the fiddle around 1850 under the influence of the religious revival.

Most of the tunes are examples of Polska: the typical Swedish dance that shares nothing with the European 2/4 Polka, it’s actually a ¾ time dance in which the musicians accentuate the first and third beats.

LP 1975 Out – of- print

Side A
Paul Anderson (b. 1898)
01 Wedding march from Jämtland
02 Lapp Nils Polska
03 Lapp Nils Polska
Per Eriksson (b. 1893)
04 Wedding march
05 Waltz
06 Lapp Nils Polska
Erik Nilsson (b. 1886)
07 Lapp Nils Polska
08 Lapp Nils Polska
09 Lapp Nils Waltz
Ante Falk (b. 1886)
10 Lapp Nils Polska
11 Lapp Nils Polska
Andreas Nilsson (b. 1899)
12 Polska
13 Lapp Nils Waltz
Side B
Fridolf Andersson (b. 1886)
14 Polska
15 Polska
16 Polska
Kjell Brannlund (b. 1916)
17 Polska
18 Polska
John Erik Mattsson (b. 1904)
19 Polska
20 Polska
21 Polska
Paul Mann (b. 1899)
22 Polska
23 Polska
Fritjof Mesch (b. 1903)
24 Polska
25 Polska
Jonas Myhr (b. 1897)
26 Wedding March
27 Polska
28 Wedding tune
29 Storhurven Polska

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