Pols For Yoshimi: A Song History
"Pols For Yoshimi" is among the tunes in Mark Gilston's Scandinavian Tunes For Dulcimer, a 64-page book of mountain dulcimer arrangements that Gilston publishes himself and that comes as a download with each tune also in its own PDF.[1] The listing gives no composer for this tune or any other in the book, and the sources consulted here do not say who wrote it or who Yoshimi is.[1][2] Gilston, who grew up in New York City, took up the traditional fiddle music of Sweden in the early 1990s, playing it first on concertina and later carrying the style over to the dulcimer.[2] He moved to Austin, Texas, in 2002, and in 2016 he won the National Mountain Dulcimer contest at Winfield, Kansas.[2]
Allart van Everdingen, A Mill on Rocks in a River in Norway, pen and brown ink, brown wash, and black chalk, mid-17th century. Shown for its Norwegian setting; it has no connection to the tune.
The word pols names a group of Norwegian rural dance forms in triple time.[3] According to Store norske leksikon, the name comes from polsk dans, "Polish dance," and the same word takes the form polska in Sweden and Finland; in Norway it was the customary name in the north, on Nordmøre, and across most of Trøndelag and the former Hedmark county, while corresponding triple-time dances elsewhere in the country go by other names, among them springar.[3]
Sources
- Mark Gilston: "Scandinavian Tunes For Dulcimer".
- DulcimerDownloads: "Mark Gilston".
- Store norske leksikon: "polsdans".
- Image: Allart van Everdingen, A Mill on Rocks in a River in Norway, pen and brown ink, brown wash, and black chalk, mid-17th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.