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Written in fRoots issue 225, 2002
 

ERIKSSON NYGÅRDS TALLROTH
Klacklek
Giga GCD-53 (2001)

DRAUPNER
Draupner
Caprice CAP 21648 (2001)

PELLE BJÖRNLERT
Fors
Giga GCD-57 (2001)

BENGT LÖFBERG
Luringen
Giga GCD-56 (2001)

PÄKKOS GUSTAF WITH JONAS HOLMÉN & OLA BÄCKSTRÖM
Päkkoslåtar
Giga GCD-58 (2001)

HJÄRP ERIK
Långt Jässbôd
Giga GCD-52 (2001)

MATS EDÉN
Avtryck
Amigo AMCD 746 (2001)

Today, in the phalanx of skilled fiddlers in Sweden, we’re seeing the post-revival bulge resulting from the great upsurge of interest by Swedish youth in traditional music which began in the 1970s. And apart from being part of a thriving scene of live playing, many of the new crop make CDs, either solo or duet collections or as members of bands. One wonders at the likely sales figures within Sweden’s population of about 9 million, most of whom, as in most European countries, remain fairly oblivious to traditional music, but there’s no doubting the consistent high quality of the playing, and these are well-packaged releases with interesting booklet notes that reveal a real, satisfying and enviable inseparability of the music from location, family, friendship, and community.
      As to the degree of originality, as discussed lately in fRoots with relation to young British and Irish roots musicians, most players have their own distinguishing characteristics, and many are adding their own tunes to the store of material, but perception of these subtler originalities depends to a great extent on the closeness of the listener to the details of the music. A newcomer’s first perception is of a sea of intricate fiddling, a beautiful environment but confusing to navigate, and most would probably head first for the more distinguishable islands of bands with vocals and/or wider instrumentation.

      In the course of the revival the mandola, introduced to Swedish music by Ale Möller, has become an oft-used accompanying instrument, reinforcing the rhythms while sympathetic to the fiddle’s subtleties. It’s the instrument of choice of Stockholm musician David Tallroth, playing with fiddlers Sophia Eriksson and Anders Nygårds. All three are in their mid-twenties, and they met while studying folk music at Stockholm’s Royal University College of Music. (“Beautiful tunes spread like a virus at the college”, to quote their notes to a Gotland slängpolska). On Klacklek they play tunes, mostly polskas, from Eriksson’s native Värmland and Nygårds’ Dalarna.

      There’s mandola in Draupner, too. It’s played by Upplander Tomas Lindberg, with Hälsingland fiddlers Henning Andersson and Görgen Antonsson. Lindberg predominantly uses guitar, though, so their group sound is heftier than that of Eriksson Nygårds Tallroth. The guitar’s role in Swedish roots music is less prominent than in many other European revivals, but Väsen’s Roger Tallroth (who arranged a couple of the tunes here) has evolved a guitar style that’s mandola-like in its sympathetic tune-propulsion but bassier, and Draupner, though it doesn’t feature nyckelharpa, often has a Väsen-like whizz to its Hälsingland traditional and new made polskas.

      Pelle Björnlert’s Fors is, like many Swedish fiddle albums, completely solo. On it he plays tunes from 19th-century Tjust fiddler Pelle Fors and others on fiddle and on a 1976 copy of an old Swedish violino d’amore with four playing and eight resonating strings. He took up the latter as a result of inspiration in Norway from Hardanger fiddler Torleiv Bolstad. As to why he took up the fiddle in the first place: “Someone asked ‘Where did you get the inspiration to start playing the fiddle?’ ‘From Bob Dylan’, I replied. ‘But he doesn’t play the fiddle, does he?’. ‘No’.”

      Bengt Löfberg, whose Luringen is also a solo fiddle album, was Pelle Björnlert’s teacher and playing and researching companion; in the 1970s they recorded an album together. At that time he was deep into study of the details of the old playing styles, but now feels it’s important to expand with his own strong dynamics on what he learnt from the work of the old masters in Sweden, including not just fiddlers but famous accordionist Calle Jularbo, and also from Norwegians such as Torleiv Bjørgum and Kjetil Løndal. The material he plays is mostly associated with south Sweden, particularly Småland and Östergotland.

      Päkkos Gustaf, farmer of Bingsjö in east Dalarna, was one of the previous generation’s fiddle masters. Born in 1916, in 1998 he recorded the tunes on Päkkoslåtar, playing shapely, strong tunes with his customary emphatic rhythmic push, accompanied by two leading present-day fiddlers also from Dalarna, Ola Bäckström (of Swåp, Triptyk and other combos) and Jonas Holmén. He’d planned to record more, but later that year broke his little finger; it hadn’t returned to sufficient serviceability by the time he died in 2000.

      Also now of Bingsjö, but born in 1928 in another part of Dalarna, the village of Blecket near Rättvik, is chromatic button accordionist, painter and woodsman Hjärp Erik. Beginning playing at the time of Jularbo’s fame, Erik turned to fiddlers rather than accordionists as his model, specifically to Rättvik’s Blank Carl Andersson, employing techniques such as using the two auxiliary rows to get trills and even suggesting a fiddler’s quarter-tones, impossible on an accordion, by briefly touching a semitone pair. It’s a very subtle style, and he’s much liked by fiddlers for it.

      Mats Edén is usually thought of as a fiddler, with Groupa, Nordan and his own album projects, most recently Milvus on ECM. But back in 1979 he was the first person to win a Zorn medal playing diatonic accordion, and that’s the instrument he plays predominantly on Avtryck, featuring tunes from his home county of Värmland, up against the Norwegian border, as well as from Dalarna and Dalsland. For seven of the twenty-seven tracks, though, he varies the sound, with tunes, including a couple from Norway, played on the five playing-string, five resonating-string drone fiddle made for him by Hedningarna’s Anders Norudde.


© 2001 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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