Information, stories and legends from some of the tunes at CD Synnøve Sletten Nattfiol
Genuine Finnskog-music
You can hear the genuine old folk music from the area Varaldskogen "the orchid part" of Finnskogen, in the magic great forest area at the border between Norway and Sweden. The play is ruff and in the typical old Varaldskog style.
You can also hear new folk tunes that she has composed by herself. This is her way to bring the music further to the next generation.
Information about some tunes at CD Synnøve Sletten Nattfiol
1. Treskotramper – trad. 2:46
Snuff and Clogstamper
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An old melody for men with clogs and snuff. At this melody the old lumberjacks stamp whit their clogs and are rather satisfied.
"Whit snuff and the right contact whit the lord yuo can become extremly old beefore yuo had to go north"
- Words from Rudolf Varaildengen 83 year old, raised on moosemeat and cowberry preserve. Rudolf is a living legend, lumberman and storyteller at Varaldskogen. .
Swedish snuff is a ground tobacco product dating from the late 1700s.
Sample of Snuff and Clogstamper (mp3.).
2. Nattfiol - av Synnøve Sletten 4:06
Nattfiol is a complex double meaning word in Norwegian. Night-violin or Lesser butterfly orchid and here we have the combination.
The taste of a Nordic summer night.
The lesser butterfly orchid has
always become the orchid of mysticism.
If you have been so lucky that you have seen, smelled and felt its complexity you know why. The weakness and complete look , with fragrance so rich and special that they are almost indescribable.The Lesser Butterfly orchid is one of few flowers that send out a sweet scent in the night only so that the butterflying can pollinate them.
One of the perfume-industries most holy dream is to copy the indescribables smell of this magical orchid. The great poets has written about it and the botanist fader "him self" Carl von Linne - meant that this orchid could be used as an potency medicine. It is not only hard to know everything about the wild flowers and butterflies meaning in this world, it is impossible.
In Varaldskogen where Synnøve Sletten lives, far away from asphalt-civilization and exhaust-stress, there you can still find mysticisms, butterflies, wild orchid and living night-violins.
Video sample of Nattfiol click here (wmv)
5. Skvett oppi koppen - av Synnøve Sletten 2:31
Moonshine in the cup
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It is not coffee with milk and big words that is classic in Varaldskogen.
(unfortunately the musicians in the area are known as a alcohol-drinking musicians)
We are working whit the tecniqe............
but the only thing you can get legal is this sample(mp3)
11. Jenta i Nese` - Trøllspringar 1:54
Styggammal Varaldskog - trad.
The girl in Nese` - Trolldance Extremely old Varaldskog- trad.
This is a mysterious melody and it is one of the oldest folk-melodies in Norway. Laurits Tangen one of the last great fiddlers from Finnskogen say in a National Radio 1/9.1954:
"It was a hulder- or a trollgirl (a fabulous being) that sang this melody first, she walked in the field and drought a milk-bucket after herself in a rope. It was like she brought the milk from the field and to herself.
It was real magic even in Finnskogen where everything unbelievable can happen. And when she walked and draw the milk bucket after herself, she sings this melody. And the melody has become in the folk-memory since then - and the melody have been played in a hundred of years in Nese` and around in the Austmarka area."
The video are from Nese` the place where this legend came from. Synnøve Sletten lives in the neighbourhood and her family has lived in this part of Finnskogen for generations!!
We see the musicians from the CD: Vegar Vårdal (violin), Viðar SB Skrede (violin) and Synnøve Sletten (here dancing trolldance).
Video sample of this magic tune. (wmv)
9.Varaldskogdunder'n – Varaldskogtrad med tredjevendinga
til Synnøve Sletten 2:00
Thunderclap at Varaldskogen
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Dancing outdoor was normal in the old days at Varaldskogen but this old story of this melody has nothing to do with the weather.
“Well it was a musician at Varaldskogen that was playing at an outdoor-dancing at a scene built up in a slope. The tradition was that they had to give the musician something to drink if they want music, but this musician was rater thirsty so he fell under the scene and roll under the dance-floor during the dance. He waked up first the next day, but he still hear the tramp on the dance-floor and a melody was banging in his head, and that was Varaldskogdundere'n.”
That's the old 2/3part of the melody and the rest is Synnøve Sletten's addition too the melody.
Sample of Varaldskogdunder´n (mp3)
13.Gråtarn – trad 2:13
The crying little man - trad.
This is a typical very old waltz from Finnskogen, its played in many versions and under various of names in this region.
Many says that there is Halteguten (year 1780-1840)the most legendary fiddler in Finnskogen ever who played it first, but it can also been Lumiansguten (year 1816-1875)that made something extra odd in his early days, he was named "the waltz king in Finnskogen"
Halteguten sure played it sadder, and more powerful, Lumiansguten played it more sophisticated an nice.
But who really knows, it might have been an old Finnskog-women that played it first.
This version is a Varaldskogversjon , learned and played like the old folks in Synnøve Sletten's family from the Varaldskog part of Finnskogen.
Contact: synnove@nattfiol.no
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