Discovery

Born in Scotland, brought up in the south of England, I qualified first as a hospital administrator before working with folk music and dance as organiser and teacher; I then studied music and played professionally, took a doctorate in musicology and worked as a college lecturer; having been a free-lance performer, researcher, teacher and writer in Sweden's Norrland, and working with people-friendly pedagogics as professor at Tartu University in Estonia, I'm currently exploring ways of showing how renaissance musical thinking can enhance human harmony today.

My first contact with Swedish music was while playing in the streets of Stockholm's old town, where like many others I was captivated by the tradition of playing fiddle music in several parts. I met Sven Berger at the Music Museum, and after a while started playing with him and even teaching his students occasionally. I was surprised to find that music history in Sweden was taught from the same American book as I had had in England, and - remembering those fiddlers - wondered if there wasn't a special Swedish angle on music history too. I have now heard about Ingrid and Leif Grave-Müller playing music from Skara, know that Anders Rosén is producing some records to illustrate the history of the Swedish polska, have heard Eva Nässén sing Düben songs, and so on; but when, on a visit to Växjö in southern Sweden, Pär Lindström showed me Måns Tegner's article about the musicalia in the Lands- och Stiftsbibliotek (Provincial and Diocesan library) there, I had to go and look.

What I found was very exciting, I thought, and I have since spent a good deal of time with the music in that collection, and in two others - that of Skara Stifts- och Landsbibliotek, and that of Länsmuséet (the county museum) Murberget in Härnösand. I have also paid shorter visits to the university libraries in Uppsala and Gothenburg (Göteborg), and that of Kungliga Musikaliska Akademin (the Royal Academy of Music) in Stockholm.

I have had use of this 'Swedish' material on courses, with a choir in Härnösand, and particularly with Musica Colorata in Sweden and in Germany: much of it is excitingly fresh and as worthwhile as today's 'standard' repertoire; some of it is just right for singing round the table after dinner; and bits of it even change the common image we have of earlier music-making.