The Scandinavian ballad tradition is the tradition of Scandinavian poetic singer-songwriters. Within the tradition, the Swedish ballad tradition has been particularly influential, but the tradition also exists in the other Scandinavian countries. This visa tradition should not be confused with traditional "medieval" Swedish ballads (medeltida ballader), which are representative of a typical tradition of Scandinavian ballads.
The Scandinavian ballad tradition today is both a respected art form and an important basis of the popular Scandinavian sing-along tradition. The song type is typically known as visa in Swedish or vise in Norwegian, and troubadours in the genre are called vissångare in Swedish or visesanger in Norwegian. In context, the Swedish word "ballad" is a subtype of "visa" that tells a story in many verses, similar to the medieval ballads, as opposed to for instance lyrical songs about the beauty of nature. The Swedish ballads can be performed to a big orchestra but are often sung to fairly simple accompaniment on guitar, or other instruments such as piano or accordion.
The genre started with Carl Michael Bellman in the late 18th century. In the 19th century, poetic songwriting fell into decline in favour of academic student choirs, until it was revived in the 1890s by Sven Scholander. Poets increasingly continued the tradition of having their poetry put to music to give it a wider audience. In the early 1900s, a lot of poetry of the 90s poets Gustaf Fröding and Erik Axel Karlfeldt had been put to music, and the popularity of those poets largely depended on the troubadours.
Birger Sjöberg (1885–1929) was one of the early popular troubadours. Sjöberg published the poetry collection Frida's Book (Fridas bok, 1922), a light and humorous story of the young Frida. In 1926, he reinvented himself with Kriser och kransar (Crises and garlands), a much darker collection of poetry. It is regarded as the foremost collection of Swedish poetry of the 1920s. [1]
One of the most renowned Swedish troubadours of the 20th century was Evert Taube (1890–1976). He established himself as a performing artist in 1920 and toured Sweden for about three decades. He is best known for songs about sailors, ballads about Argentina, and songs about the Swedish countryside. [2]
A poet who is known for songs is Nils Ferlin (1898–1961) who published six collection of poetry between 1930 and 1957. Ferlin melancholic but with a stinging irony, [2] and very rhythmical which made them easy for friends and colleagues to put music to. The titles of some of the poems already from the start referred to them being sung as songs, such as "En valsmelodi" (which translates as "A waltz tune"), and the title of his first collection of poems, "En döddansares visor".
Other well-known singer-songwriters in the Swedish ballad tradition after Evert Taube were Olle Adolphson (1934–2004) and Cornelis Vreeswijk (1937–1987). Vreeswijk's songs were initially leftist protest songs where he took upon himself to speak for the weaker men of society. After his death, Vreeswijk also gained appreciation for his poetic qualities. [2]
A Swedish contemporary troubadour is Lars Winnerbäck, whose folk-rock ballads, often infused with a poetic quality, mix a Christian socialist political message with a typically Swedish sensitivity to nature in the spirit of Vreeswijk, making him one of Sweden's most popular currently active musicians.
The contemporary Norwegian ballad tradition, known as the "ballad wave" (Norwegian : visebølgen), started as a cultural movement in the 1960s, greatly inspired by the Swedish ballad tradition and its modern representatives such as Olle Adolphson and Cornelis Vreeswijk. Some of its prominent representatives are Ole Paus, Lillebjørn Nilsen and Finn Kalvik; Alf Prøysen was also called a visesanger, and influenced but in many ways preceded the Norwegian "ballad wave."
Carl Michael Bellman was a Swedish songwriter, composer, musician, poet and entertainer. He is a central figure in the Swedish song tradition and remains a powerful influence in Swedish music, as well as in Scandinavian literature, to this day. He has been compared to Shakespeare, Beethoven, Mozart, and Hogarth, but his gift, using elegantly rococo classical references in comic contrast to sordid drinking and prostitution—at once regretted and celebrated in song—is unique.
Cornelis Vreeswijk was a Dutch-born Swedish singer-songwriter, poet and actor.
Bengt Gunnar Ekelöf was a Swedish poet and writer. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1958 and was awarded an honorary doctorate in philosophy by Uppsala University in 1958. He won a number of prizes for his poetry.
Jakob Hellman is a Swedish pop singer. His debut album, ...och stora havet, released in 1989, was his only release for 32 years. He released his second album, Äntligen borta, on January 8, 2021. He is still a well known figure in Swedish music.
Swedish literature refers to literature written in the Swedish language or by writers from Sweden.
Birger Sjöberg (1885–1929) was a Swedish poet, novelist and songwriter, whose best-known works include the faux-naïf song collection Fridas Bok and the novel Kvartetten Som Sprängdes, a somewhat Dickensian relation about stock-exchange gambling in the twenties, and the frantic efforts to recover.
Sven-Bertil Gunnar Evert Taube is a Swedish singer and actor. Born in Stockholm, he is the son of songwriter Evert Taube and sculptor Astri Taube.
Olle Adolphson was a Swedish writer, singer and songwriter. He released a range of books, LPs and CDs.
Swedish modernist poetry developed in the 1910s with authors such as Pär Lagerkvist and was established the 1930s and 1940s. Distinguishing features where experimentation within a variety of styles, usually free prose without rhymes or metric syllables.
Märk hur vår skugga is one of the best-known of the 1790 Fredman's Epistles, where it is No. 81. These were written and performed by Carl Michael Bellman, the dominant figure in the Swedish song tradition. Its subject is the funeral of one of Bellman's female acquaintances, Grälmakar Löfberg's wife.
Den svenska sångboken is a 1997 Swedish book with 331 songs, written by Anders Palm and Johan Stenström. It was followed by the 1999 book Barnens svenska sångbok.
Lars Jacob Jack Vreeswijk is a Swedish ballad singer, song lyricist and composer. Being son of troubadour Cornelis Vreeswijk, he followed in his father's footsteps and has so far released three albums of his own, often singing his father's songs. He is usually accompanied by guitarist Love Tholin.
Martin Best is an English singer, lutenist, guitarist, and composer. Best has been active mainly in early music including Renaissance music, minstrel songs and the French troubadour traditions, in works related to Shakespeare, such as the sonnets and music to Shakespeare plays, and also in songs of the Swedish ballad tradition. He has often performed in constellations named Martin Best Consort and Martin Best Medieval Ensemble.
Visor från vinden is the Swedish singer Sofia Karlsson's third studio album as a solo artist. The album was released on 11 April 2007 by Bonnier Amigo Music Group.
Solen glimmar blank och trind is Epistle No. 48 in the Swedish poet and performer Carl Michael Bellman's 1790 song collection, Fredman's Epistles. The Epistle is subtitled "Hvaruti afmålas Ulla Winblads hemresa från Hessingen i Mälaren en sommarmorgon 1769". One of his best-known and best-loved works, it depicts an early morning on Lake Mälaren, as the Rococo muse Ulla Winblad sails back home to Stockholm after a night spent partying on the lake. The composition is one of Bellman's two Bacchanalian lake-journeys, along with epistle 25, representing a venture into a social realism style.
Ulla! min Ulla! säj, får jag dig bjuda, is one of the Swedish poet and performer Carl Michael Bellman's best-known and best-loved songs, from his 1790 collection, Fredman's Epistles, where it is No. 71. A pastorale, it depicts the Rococo muse Ulla Winblad, as the narrator offers her "reddest strawberries in milk and wine" in the Djurgården countryside north of Stockholm.
Glimmande Nymf! blixtrande öga!, is a song by the Swedish poet and performer Carl Michael Bellman from his 1790 collection, Fredman's Epistles, where it is No. 72. It is subtitled "Lemnad vid Cajsa Lisas Säng, sent om en afton", and set to a melody by Egidio Duni. A night-piece, it depicts a Rococo muse in the Ulla Winblad mould, asleep in her bed in Stockholm, complete with allusions to both classical and Nordic mythology.
Ge rum i Bröllopsgåln din hund! is Epistle No. 40 in the Swedish poet and performer Carl Michael Bellman's 1790 song collection, Fredman's Epistles. One of his best-known works, it describes an utterly chaotic wedding at a venue where soldiers mixed up with musicians and the wedding-party; the chimney catches fire, and even the priest robs the collection. The verse-pattern and elaborate rhyming scheme combine to assist the feeling of chaos.
Karl Ewert Alvar Ljusberg was a Swedish troubadour, ballad singer, entertainer, and the fictitious Republic of Jamtland's president since 1989. He lived in Hällekis.
Ljuva karneval! is a 2005 book about the work of Sweden's national bard, the 18th century poet and performer Carl Michael Bellman, by the Swedish literary scholar Lars Lönnroth. Bellman is the central figure in Swedish song, known in particular for his 1790 collection, Fredman's Epistles. Lönnroth, who has studied Bellman since the 1960s, aims to give an overview of Bellman's work, describing the essence of Bellman's art: giving a frolicking one-man performance, religious or profane, through adapted tunes, imitated crowd sounds and speech in different languages, and songs in varied genres. He distinguishes carefully between the art and the person of Bellman, who in his view was by no means as drunken and debauched as the cast of his Epistles.