Sibbe Live!: Folk Music Evening
I Fäälan:
Mats Granfors (fiddle)
Kenneth Nordman (fiddle, nyckelharpa)
Tom Forsman (guitar, lute)
I fäälan, are local dialect and can either mean “to be on a journey” or “footprints”. This ambiguity suits us well as our most recent compositions can be said to be a tour of new tunes at the same time as we are following in the footsteps of earlier fiddle players deeply rooted in the South Ostrobothnian folk music tradition.
The trio consisting of Mats Granfors (violin), Kenneth Nordman (violin, nyckelharpa) and Tom Forsman (Guitar, lute) perform both traditional folk music and new tunes composed by the trio. The repertoar consist of folk music from the Swedish speaking areas of Finland, mostly from Southern Ostrobothnia.
Wedding traditions
The peasant tradition of “silver weddings” in Ostrobothnia and South Ostrobothnia continued well into the 20th century. The last wedding in Tjöck took place as late as in 1931. Silver weddings went on for three days during which music and musicians were regular features. There were different tunes for different rituals during the ceremony. A bridal march was a given, and so was a greeting tune. Minuets were common; different minuets were played on the different days of the wedding, so many of them were second-day or third-day minuets. The bride and groom also had to dance a “canopy-holder’s minuet” with each of the persons who held a canopy, or silk cloth, over the couple during the ceremony. Specific marches were played when the food was brought in and others accompanied the serving of aquavit.
Ostrobothnian minuets and polskas
Ostrobothnian fiddlers are famous for their strong minuet tradition to this day. When Otto Andersson came to Ostrobothnia to meet with fiddlers and document their tunes, he became fascinated by the fact that minuets, which were almost extinct in other parts of Swedish-speaking Finland, were still frequently danced and played here. Young people used to get together for a long night of feasting during which they might dance nothing but minuets. Polskas were immensely popular too. It has been common in Ostrobothnia to dance a minuet that is followed by a polska. There cannot be many places in the Nordic countries where minuets still are as common as they are here. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Kristinestad had one of Finland’s largest and most important merchant harbours, and as a result musical influences and fashionable dances were introduced from abroad. This has almost certainly had an impact on the Ostrobothnian music and dance traditions.