Slangpolska Efter Bysse-Calle: A Song History
The title ties this Swedish tune to Byss-Calle (also written Byss-Kalle), the nickname of Karl Ersson Bössa, a nyckelharpa player born on 26 April 1783 in Älvkarleby parish, Uppland, who died on 7 January 1847.[1][2] As a boy he went out on his father's fishing boat in Gävle Bay, and he later earned his living rowing barges on the Dalälven while playing for weddings and other gatherings across the district.[1][2] A 1947 article in the Uppland yearbook gives Östanå as his birthplace, and a 1940 survey of Uppland fiddlers also places his parents there, though it calls him a man from Östanby.[1][2]
Jacob Philipp Hackert, View of Svenarum in the Province of Småland, Sweden, brush and gray and brown wash over black chalk, ca. 1764. A Swedish village drawn in the 1760s; it has no connection to Byss-Calle or the tune.
Much of his music reached later players through Mats Wesslén, organist at Österlövsta from 1832 until 1878, who admired Byss-Calle's playing and took over his whole repertoire; his notations of a great many of those tunes were later published.[2] The 1947 article names that printed collection as 160 dans polskor från Uppland.[1] Most of his polskas are sixteenth-note polskas (sextondelspolskor), according to the 1940 survey.[2] Those names overlap: Henrik Norbeck describes the even polska, whose three beats split into equal eighth notes and often sixteenths, as also called slängpolska or sextondelspolska.[3] Wikipedia likewise treats the slängpolska as a sixteenth-note form of the polska.[4] The sources consulted here do not trace this particular slängpolska to a specific manuscript or player.[1][2]
His music has continued to draw attention in print and on record: Leif Alpsjö and Jarl Holmström published a 32-page book with notation on him and his music in 1989.[5] The Swedish group Väsen recorded a "Slängpolska efter Byss Calle" on its 1992 album Vilda Väsen, alongside a bridal march credited to him, though the sources consulted here do not say whether it is the same melody Mark Gilston arranged.[6][7] On the mountain dulcimer, Gilston arranges a tune of this title as "Slangpolska Efter Bysse-Calle" in Scandinavian Tunes For Dulcimer, a book whose listing pitches it as a break from old-time and traditional American music, and there it sits beside a second slängpolska, "Slangpolska Fran Smaland."[7]
Sources
- Uppland (Årsbok, 1947): "Byss-Kalle" by Aron Hallenberg.
- Uppland (Årsbok, 1940): "Berömda uppländska spelmän" by Olof Andersson.
- Henrik Norbeck: "Swedish Traditional Music".
- Wikipedia: "Slängpolska".
- Statens musikverk (Musik- och teaterbiblioteket): "Byss-Calle: Carl Ersson: berättelsen om en spelman och hans musik".
- Stockholm University of the Arts, Fabula catalogue: "Vilda Väsen" (Väsen, Drone, 1992).
- Mark Gilston: "Scandinavian Tunes For Dulcimer".
- Image: Jacob Philipp Hackert, View of Svenarum in the Province of Småland, Sweden, brush and gray and brown wash over black chalk, ca. 1764. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.