Bach på svenska (Bach in Swedish)

Bach in Swedish Gunnar Idenstam and Lisa Rydberg Photo: Per-Åke Persson

With our classical training as a base and with feet firmly in the Swedish folk music tradition, we invite Father Bach to dance his own dance side by side with the Swedish "polska". There is much common ground - melody lines, harmony sequences, accentuations, ornamentations and rhythmic inclinations - that together gives the groove to which both styles aspire. During the Baroque period the clear distinction between "classical" music and "folk" music, to which we are accustomed today, did not exist. There was a living tradition of dances that were sometimes written down, sometimes passed on orally. During the 18th Century, a part of Swedish church organists work was to play dance music with local folk musicians at weddings and other celebrations. It's undeniably a tantalizing thought that these musicians, often of foreign heritage, who could play notated music, maybe, just maybe, sometimes taught a Swedish folk musician a minuet, a bourrée or a courante from their homeland. Maybe even something from the hands of Johann Sebastian... How would a Swedish fiddler have played Bach?

Lisa Rydberg, baroque violin, Gunnar Idenstam, harmonium organ.

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