HUR SVENSK ÄR NYCKELHARPAN (How Swedish is the nyckelharpa)?

I myself got to know the nyckelharpa when I lived in Sweden, and I had always assumed that it was also originally a Swedish instrument, used to Swedish folk music....until I met fellow nyckelharpists in Holland, who later would become my colleagues in the Dutch nyckelharpa quartet Resonans. For some of them it was not a Swedish instrument at all; it belonged to early music (or Early Music?, I mean: music from before 1750 from all kinds of countries, say from Machaut to Bach). Why Swedish? Well-known forefighters of this, for me surprising, idea of the harpa are professionals such as Marco Ambrosini, Didier François, Annette Osann and Jule Bauer. They also regularly collaborate with early music departments of conservatories, and with well-known baroque ensembles. To support their ideas about the origin of the harpa, they often refer to old paintings. The angel in the church in Siena from the early 15th century is an example:

And there are more examples. But not many, at least: not outside Sweden and the area immediately surrounding it. What we see in this picture is a kind of fiddle with keys. And with a lid over the tangent system. In that respect, the instrument has elements of a later nyckelharpa. But would we call this a nyckelharpa? Do we call a Javanese rebab a violin - after all, the rebab also has strings, bow, sound box, etc. Do we call a Turkish zurna an oboe? A taragot a clarinet? Difficult - we call a lever harp, a concert harp, a triple harp all just harp....

Back to the facts. After 1600, these types of keyed string instruments are in fact no longer found in "continental Europe" (I'll use the Scandinavian name for Europe without Scandinavia), except very sporadically - as a beggar's instrument. In what we now call baroque music it was not used att all. At the same time, in Sweden and especially in Norra Uppland, we suddenly find numerous instruments after 1600 that are strongly reminiscent of the contemporary nyckelharpa in terms of shape.

Enkelharpa, model from the early 17th century

Swedish researchers like Jan Ling and Per-Ulf Allmo have puzzled over where this instrument came from so suddenly. Several theories have been suggested: via the Sorbian fiddle from eastern Germany. Via the blacksmiths recruited from Wallonia who went to work in Norra Uppland. There is little concrete evidence for these theories, so actually we don't know. However, the later development from this "enkelharpa" in Uppland is easy to follow. The oldest ones did not have sympathetic strings. These appeared first around 1670 (my theory: scientists had become acquainted with instruments from the Middle East and India around that time, and thus discovered the principle of sympathetic strings. The viola d'amore got its sympathetic strings also first around this same time). The musical possibilities slowly expanded: first the kontrabasharpa and after 1850 the silverbasharpa. By the way, the word kontrabasharpa has nothing to do with the double bass but everything with the place of the bourdon strings.

From 1930, first August Bohlin and later Eric Sahlström developed the well-known chromatic nyckelharpa with three playing strings. So we are dealing with a truly modern instrument! Bohlin and Sahlström based themselves entirely on the silverbasharpa: they kept the low bourdon string and in fact only put tangents and keys on the second lowest, the G. They also kept the tuning of the two highest playing strings at "silverbas height": C and A.

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August Bohlin on the left, Eric Sahlström on the right

I will write about this "C tuning" later. It is interesting to note that both these two harpa innovators were violinists. So though they were totally used to fifths tuning, they kept their new instruments in silverbas tuning, C G C' A'.

After Sahlström, development continued - but more and more outside Sweden. In Germany and France, builders began developing nyckelharpas with keys on all four strings. They also built harpas with lower or higher tuning. Esbjörn Hogmark writes in his book "Nyckelharpa" (which unfortunately only appeared in Swedish) that he is inclined to say with some disdain that "people in Sweden know why keys on the low C is not such a good idea", but Swedish builders have now also, hesitantly, started with four rows, oktavharpor and fiolharpor. And that tones on the low C string would not sound good on a chromatic harpa is completely belied by the non-Swedish instruments of e.g. Condi, Mayr and Osann. And actually, the first four row harpa was built by a Swede, Erik Olsson in Hedemora, during the 1950s! Yet he seems to have been out too early.

How Swedish is the nyckelharpa? Very Swedish, I would say, and even enigmatically Uppländsk. Which does not alter the fact that the sound is ideally suited for some genres other than (Swedish) folk music. In fact, I hope and expect that the automatical "tying" of nyckelharpa and Swedish music eventually will disappear. Also, the initiative in the world of harpa building is now largely found outside Sweden. And indeed, it is especially a pleasure to play old music on a harpa!