A quartet of strange and wonderful sounds from long ago and far away

by Christine Menefee

Lately I've come across some European sounds from long ago. They charm, and they awaken in me a feeling of almost-remembered times and places. Their appeal is not just in the romanticism of the "long ago and far away;" they leave me with a mind refreshed and a spirit lighter, and with that somehow comforting awareness of the vast spaces all around and within us.

Adagio ma non troppo
The Lost Songs of St Kilda
This music comes to us down a chain of connections so delicate and tenuous that it seems unlikely they found each other at all, and if those connections hadn't materialized we'd never have had a hint
of what was lost. This story made me me feel the weight of human lives forgotten--and at the same time, the lightness of the our present moment.

The Lost Songs of St Kilda are currently featured among the British audience's "top 50" hits on the radio station Classic FM in London. As the fascinating story on the website unfolds--and do please visit the story linked above; this post is no more than a teaser--we learn that St Kilda is small group of islands in the outermost Hebrides, rarely reachable not only from Scotland but even from the other islands, because the seas there are almost always very rough. Yet for 4,000 years the isolated islands supported populations of about 200 people from time to time, and they must have developed some unique cultural traits. Not much is remembered now about their way of life, except that they ate seabirds and made tweed from the wool of a variety of "stone age sheep" that still survives today.

The article on Classic FM tells us that St. Kilda was a popular tourist destination for Victorians attracted to the romanticism of its archaic charms, but the people elected to evacuate to the mainland almost 100 years ago when their population fell to just 36. It was assumed that any music unique to St Kilda had been lost when its people joined the culture on the mainland--until a volunteer at a care home in Edinburgh met an elderly man who, in childhood, had been taught some of the island's music by a piano teacher from St Kilda. The boy loved his teacher's story of this music's origin in the lost world of St. Kilda, and sixty years later he still  remembered eight songs without words, and liked to play them for the other residents at the home.

The volunteer recognized that this memory might be important, and recorded him. From there, the music found its way through a number of musicologists and musicians until finally, along with composer Sir James Macmillan and a piano, it traveled back to St Kilda on a boat escorted by dolphins. There, before a small audience of National Trust employees and some students on the island to study its feral sheep, the songs without words were played again and recorded, and now they're on the Classic FM hit parade.

But, again, do visit the link to the story. There's much more to it than I've related here, and it's all truly beguiling. You can see a map, short videos and photos at Classic FM, and even hear some of this music.

Allegro moderato
Elfdalian, the ancient forest language of the Vikings
Another video that caught my attention recently came through an email from someone on the Norse side of my family, where any news of Vikings is welcome. Elfdalian, the ancient forest language of the Vikings, is not music, precisely, but it's certainly musical. This language survives today among a few speakers in a very remote Swedish village called Alvdalen where, until 100 years ago, people still used the ancient Runic script. The link above is to an article about Elfdalian which includes video of a performance in which the language is spoken.

It's haunting to see and hear this very real Elvish language. The people living in Alvdalen are still struggling to keep the language alive much as the Celts are doing in Ireland and Scotland, and as other language groups do in other places where the speakers have become minorities. I regret that the poetry most often spoken in Elfdalien now consists of translations of Christian narratives, as in the video linked. Still, the performance has a haunting Nordic sound and maybe, someday, someone will unearth a poem in Elfdalien about the goddess Freya, who traveled through the air in a chariot drawn by fierce cats. But that's not to detract from the amazing fact that Elfdalian is still spoken at all. It still sounds beautiful.

Scherzo
Kulning: Old Swedish herding calls
Also from Sweden comes another ancient European voice art: Calling cows in the pastures. These videos (linked below) are wonderful. Who wouldn't appreciate a concert like this, from a pretty girl in a white summer dress who shows up in your pasture to sing just to you?  In the second video, linked below, it's winter. The cows must be  keeping warm in the barn, but the song still echoes through the snowy forest.

Allegro cantabile
Wood Works: Norse folk tunes "from all the small places"
I had the very good fortune to hear the Danish String Quartet in concert this winter. Besides exacting and passionate performances of some fine classical music, they played their own arrangements of several folk tunes from the westernmost Danish island, from the forest of Sweden, and from an itinerant Norwegian musician playing a tune he remembered from the Rhineland. I bought the CD and like listening to this music in the morning and in the evening:  Spare and elegant in that special Scandinavian way, it's good medicine for clearing the head and opening up new pathways to surprising and mostly-benign, rather spacey places.

From the album's liner notes, the Quartet explains:

The string quartet is a pure construct: Four simple instruments made of wood. But in all its simplicity the string quartet is capable of expressing a myriad of colours, nuances, and emotions--just like folk music.... Normally the string quartet has been reserved for the classical masters. Now we want to see what happens when we let the Nordic folk music flow through the wooden instruments of the string quartet.

 Does it work? We hope so. And remember: We simply borrowed these tunes. They have already been returned.

(c) 2017 Christine Menefee