Hurv KRCD-27: Historic recordings of Swedish folk music: IV -
The Silver-bass Nyckelharpa I - Sigurd Holmberg
The
silver-bass nyckelharpa is the last of the "old nyckelharpas",
which all were diatonic drone instruments, and the last step of a development
which went on for five hundred years or more.
The silverbasharpa has two melody strings and two drones. The biggest novelty when it came in, perhaps in the 1830s, was that the second melody string got its own row of keys with their own tangents. The second melody string and its row of keys could be used to embellish the melody with double stops as on a fiddle.
Since the melody strings of the silverbasharpa are next to each other it was now possible to play melodies without a constant drone. From this there developed a characteristic way of playing, "dip bass", where the drones not only have a harmonic function, but also a rhythmical one.
 |
31 of the tunes were recorded in 1957, when Sigurd Holmberg was 69, while the remain-enging three are of later date, after he'd celebrated his 75th birthday. The booklet includes 20 fascinating pages each in English and Swedish, with history, biography and many photos. |
 |
|
| list of tunes |
 |
| Tyska polskan (schottis) 340 Kb |
Storstugan
500 Kb |
 |
