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Written in Folk Roots issue 184, 1998

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Musica Sveciae - Songs Of Sailors & Navvies
Caprice CAP 21540 (1996)
Musica Sveciae - Folk Tunes From Rättvik, Boda & Bingsjö
Caprice CAP 22044 (double CD) (1997)
Musica Sveciae - Folk Tunes From Dala-Floda, Enviken & Ore
Caprice CAP 21541 (1997)
Musica Sveciae - Blood, Corpses & Tears - Chapbook Songs
Caprice CAP 21542 (1997)
Musica Sveciae - Folk Songs & Tunes From Bohuslän
Caprice CAP 21543 (1997)
Musica Sveciae - Chorales & Wedding Music From Runö
Caprice CAP 21547 (1997)
Musica Sveciae - Folk Music In Transition
Caprice CAP 21548 (1997)

Together with the magnificent Yoik box (3 CDs and a book), these albums were intended to be the last batch of Caprice’s 25-CD re-mastered release of the material on the Musica Sveciae LP series plus new inclusions. Editor Anna Frisk and producer Torbjörn Ivarsson’s task is complete, but they couldn’t stop at 25 - there are at least another couple more CDs to come in this mighty series of Swedish traditional musics from archives and field recordings made throughout this century. The series sampler released earlier, Traditional Folk Music (CAP 21474E), gives an overview and has, like all of them, excellent notes in English - the individual CD booklets together amount to a major multi-authored treatise.
      The titles give some idea of the content; I can’t begin to describe it all here, but it might be helpful if I say that 22044 and 21541 feature many of Dalarna’s greatest fiddlers recorded from the 1940s to the 1980s, that Runö is an island off the coast of Estonia which was home to a Swedish enclave until WW2, and Folk Music In Transition features the work of some of those who have taken Swedish folk music as a starting point for new evolution - such as a folksong arrangement by jazz pianist Jan Johansson played by the Arne Domnérus Septet, orchestral works, and Hedningarna - together with field recordings (one from as long ago as 1906) of performers who passed on the tradition in their time.


© 1998 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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