Byggna'n (The Building): A Song History
Byggna'n (also written Byggnan, "the building") is a polska credited to Byss-Kalle, the nyckelharpa player Karl Ersson Bössa of Älvkarleby parish in Uppland, who lived from 1783 to 1847.[1][2] He worked as a barge rower on the Dalälven river, and besides a great many polskas he wrote wedding marches, waltzes and other tunes.[1][2] Two articles in the Uppland yearbook from the 1940s count Byggna'n among his best-known pieces.[1][2]
Nyckelharpa, Swedish, wood and various materials, 19th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown as an example of the instrument Byss-Kalle played; it has no connection to the tune.
Tradition ties the tune's name to work on the bell tower at Älvkarleby church, which the two articles describe as being repaired or rebuilt.[1][2] In one telling, Byss-Kalle was helping a carpenter with the tower and wagered that he could make up a polska as quickly as the carpenter could finish the job.[2] The other version has him betting the master builder a jug of brännvin that he would have both a polska and a waltz ready by the day the tower was done, and then performing them for everyone on that day.[1]
Writing in 1940, Olof Andersson noted that the polska survived in two written versions, each having passed through a couple of players after Byss-Kalle, which differ from each other considerably in places.[1] One was taken down from August Bohlin of Harbo and printed in Svenska Låtar; the other came from Per Johan Bodin, who had learned it from the harpist David Skärberg, said to have been one of Byss-Kalle's pupils.[1] Andersson thought the original polska had probably differed from both versions.[1] Eric Sahlström played it on solo nyckelharpa for a 78 rpm disc issued by Radiotjänst of Stockholm, a copy of which the French archive CREM-CNRS acquired in 1951 by exchange with the Musikhistoriska museet in Stockholm.[3][4]
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