Spak Erik Olsson

Olmorts Erik Olsson (1889-1984) was from Särna in northern Dalarna. I met him for the first time in the summer of 1970, that's to say he had reached a fairly respectable age. This was the day after I first saw Ekor Anders. Even if he preferred the name Olmorts Erik everyone called him Spak Erik - 'Spak' is an old soldiers name which he inherited from his father Spak Olof, the master fiddler, Olmorts is a 'farm name'. Spak Erik was a fourth generation fiddler and his tunes, which he played in a solemn and majestetic way, had a very ancient style. He was first documented on tape by Gertrud Sundvik at Dalarnas Museum, Falun, in 1968-69, but it's almost a tragedy that it wasn't done some ten or twenty years earlier, because Spak Erik's sense of style and tradition were unpeccable and Särna is one of the truly great musical 'dialects' of Sweden. I would like to tell here that it was through Gertrud that I came to know both Ekor Anders and Spak Erik. When Spak Erik grew old his tempo decreased a bit when playing his tunes, maybe because he still thought of his music as played for dancing - he was known himself to be a very good dancer who could even could perform the acrobatique halling in his youth - when his limbs got tired and slow the speed of his playing also went down, as if old people like himself would dance to the tunes. Something wich was very fascinating was that although Spak Erik had some physical troubles all details in his playing were there, because his brain was quite sharp. Every ornament, every note or double grip, every bow stroke was very clearly demonstrated, and at some moments a strength like dynamite exploded in the rhythm - and he was happy, bursted out in a loud laugh. It could happen that he would show how his father used to play a tune as compared with is own way and then he increased the tempo slightly, meaning that Spak Olof used a higher speed, even if he didn't put it into words. Through some percent calculating, comparing with the wax roll recordings of Spak Olof, and common sense, plus knowledge of the local dance style, I think I have managed to reconstruct Spak Erik's original tempos, intentionally somewhat slower than those of his father, as I play his tunes on the two Särna CD's, KRCD-15: Hurv! - Låtar från Särna and KRCD-18: Hopp Tussilunta - Låtar från Särna II.

Together with Ekor Anders Spak Erik is my second major influence. One thing I liked especially much in Spak Erik's style was his vast use of drone strings and double grips. Stylistically the music from Särna belongs to a large area stretching from Orsa, over Älvdalen and West Dalarna and continuing far into Norway, with some local differences of course. Särna was a Norwegian province until the beginning of the last century, which is reflected in the style to some degree.