The Lira after the sixteenth century

Is it possible to call the lira a Swedish or Nordic folk-instrument? Did the lira root itself in the Nordic countries, or are the traces merely signs of an itinerant foreign visitor?

As scarcity prevails in the sources, these questions are difficult to answer.

The number of sources is increasing, but apart from notes in dictionaries and glossaries they consist only of short notes made by people having an inadequate knowledge of the musical culture of the broad masses. This means for instance that the names we have do not necessarily and perhaps rather seldom reflect the names used by the musicians themselves. This ‘upper-class’ filter is evident frequently. Many of the sources also relate to facts and circumstances present many years earlier than told by the authors, another constant reason for uncertainty.

Sweden’s last Catholic archbishop, Olaus Magnus (1490-1557), published his History of the Nordic Peoples in 1555 while in exile in Rome. Although a rich source of knowledge of the mediaeval Nordic countries, it is coloured by a naive and romantic longing for a dim and distant past. Moreover, as the book is written in Latin, the meaning of the instruments in use is often obscure. The lyra is mentioned several times, but can thanks to the context sometimes be interpreted as the hurdy-gurdy.

Nearly one hundred years later the Danish scholar Hans Mikkelsen Ravn (1610-1663) tells that “the folk instrument (lyra vulgare) called lire or nøglefeile (i.e. ‘key fiddle’) has not yet fallen into disuse[1]“. And from the end of the sixteenth century we have a note in a church record from the then Danish province of Skåne, mentioning a certain Lauritz liirere, presumably referring to a hurdy-gurdy player.

The musical revolution that took place in Europe during the sixteenth century influenced the Nordic countries later. Drone instruments such as the hurdy-gurdy and the bagpipes were relegated as new tastes and instruments appeared, though in rural areas the old instruments still played an important role and were well established.

The violin can be taken as a symbol for that revolution. However, it was not until 1646 that Queen Kristina of Sweden set the seal of nobility on it by engaging a group of French violinists. A Frenchman at her court remarks in his diary that the Queen preferred the French violin music to the vielles and cistres of the Swedes. The word melle was at that time already used in France for the hurdy-gurdy, but the writer may have meant the nyckelharpa since, as far as it is known, it did not have a French name.

Within a few decades the violin had whisked away the older mostly drone instruments, even in the Nordic countries. The Swedish priest Marcus Simming (1630-1690) wrote in 1685 an account of wedding traditions in the village of Västra Vingåker, in the province of Södermanland. Here he says: “Earlier they used nyckelgiga (nyckelharpa), juulgiga (wheel fiddle), siickepijpa (bagpipe) or horn. But now they use violins, which even farmhands have in their own way learned to fiddle and play”[2].

Eighteenth century lira sources

During this century the variety of our sources broadens beyond the scope of dictionaries. For Sweden, knowledge of musical life in this period is very closely associated with Bellman, whose songs and poems are today so deeply embedded in our cultural heritage. Bellman lived most of his life in Stockholm, at that time a European Calcutta that could not feed its roughly 70 000 inhabitants. The death rate exceeded the birth rate, and misery, famines and plagues were rife.
Bellman won great popularity in all social classes and his evocative ability makes his Stockholm come alive even today. He mentions the hurdy-gurdy several times in his works and judging from his notes, it cannot have been too uncommon. His Epistle No.33 mentions “a blind old man with the hurdy-gurdy”[3]. Nor was it merely a beggar’s instrument; in no.34, Bellman’s character, the witty musician Mowitz, is described as saving his instruments, and among them a hurdy-gurdy, from becoming the prey of a fire. The hurdy-gurdy is also heard in an inn, being played for dancing and still later together with ‘horns and fiddles’ at a wedding. These and other examples clearly show that the hurdy-gurdy must have been well-known in society, rather than being played only by occasional visiting itinerants.

Holberg places the hurdy-gurdy among the rural population. In some of his plays his own stage directions call for the hurdy-gurdy and bagpipes. There are even a couple of short melodies preserved, composed especially for these performances. His use of the hurdy-gurdy however must be seen as an exception, unlike in France for example where the instrument did experience social acceptance by the upper classes. In the Nordic countries the hurdy-gurdy was never played by fine ladies and royal princesses but remained exclusively an outcast, like those who played it.

From Norway we have little evidence of the hurdy-gurdy being used. In 1786 the authorities annulled the rights for a market in the port of Skien not far from Oslo. Among the reasons they alleged that “…foreigners with their small wares and their Lire and other kinds of Instruments…” promoted “…lechery, drunkenness and other excesses”.

The same may also apply to the holy springs just outside Copenhagen where residents of the Danish capital used to ‘pilgrimage’ at weekends. From the middle of the eighteenth century these springs constituted a sort of permanent fair which, a century later, attracted over 50 000 visitors during one weekend. This posed certain problems for the authorities who tried to stop the masses from gathering by forbidding musicians to play ‘lecherous songs’. A frontispiece from a late eighteenth century chapbook shows one of the musicians playing his Lire while a ‘wood-nymph’, i.e. a prostitute, stands in the background looking out from one of the many brothels housed in tents.

However, the hurdy-gurdy also found its place among the wandering people throughout the rural areas. These were small groups of people, often whole families, who tramped from village to village earning food or money by undertaking tasks commonly regarded as degrading. They were tinkers, chimney-builders and glaziers, they were hired to bury suicide victims, and to flay the raw hide off animals dying of natural causes. “Their hurdy-gurdies were simple instruments that were far from masterly played”, one observer remarks in the middle of the nineteenth century. Another source tells about ‘Henrik with the hurdy-gurdy’ who had made his long three-stringed instrument by himself. One of the melodies he was said to play was the wellknown Mallebrok or “Marlboroug s’en va en guerre”. ‘Lire-Anders’ was another of these musicians who, according to one observer, had two wives and played beautifully but hid his instrument under the table while playing.

Early Nordic history

The hurdy-gurdy was well established in most of Europe long before its first known sources mention its arrival in the Nordic countries. The problem lies in what it was then called, or at least with some degree of accurancy, to establish when the hurdy-gurdy first became known in Sweden or any of the other Nordic countries.

As in many other music-historical cases, the mediae val musicians, whether beggars or highly esteemed court musicians, are seen as intermediaries. They t ravelled to and from the Nordic countries, which is why it is difficult say whether the ‘Europeanization’ of Nordic musical life during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was due to foreign visitors here or to domestic visitors returning from abroad with the matter of what was to become the Nordic musical heritage.

The Church may also have played a role, as may Nordic royalty and nobility, with their liking for foreign influences. One must also consider the socio-economic integration of the Nordic countries as a whole with the rest of Europe as the main factor. This can be symbolized by the Hanseatic League, a powerful trade pact between the most important north German ports that transformed whole cities in other countries into German-dominated enclaves.

Part one briefly made reference to the first Nordic written sources mentioning the hurdy-gurdy. From about the same time, i.e. the late fifteenth century, we discover the first iconographic evidence. On the arches of the sanctuary in the small country church of Haverö, about 70 kilometres northeast of Stockholm, one can see eight angels playing different instruments, among them the hurdy-gurdy.

Depictions

The frescos, painted directly on the vaulted roof, are estimated to have been executed about 1475. The artist was most likely a German apprentice of the renowned local artist ‘Albertus Pictor’ (Albert Målare), which is why the hurdy-gurdy playing angel cannot alone be taken as proof that the instrument was played or had a tradition in the province of Uppland at that time. Nor can this be true for the country as a whole.

Some of the other instruments display a far more realistic appearance than the hurdy-gurdy, which has its wheel on the wrong side of the main bridge and also gives a rather sketchy impression of the playing technique. The fresco has thus sometimes been regarded as an example of a hurdy-gurdy with keys that were depressed onto the strings. Even if the position of the left hand and certain other details on the keybox suggest this, the picture is not clear enough to convey the intention of the artist – that is, if he ever knew. The explanation for the position of the keys could be much simpler – a lack of detailed knowledge.

The hurdy-gurdy in a fresco discovered in 1965 in the church of Rynkeby on the Danish island of Fyn is far more detailed and seems to have been painted by someone better acquainted with the instrument. The frescos date from about 1560 and here too the artist was probably German. The hurdy-gurdy itself has many traits in common with the contemporary nyckelharpa, i.e. the latter’s early shape, the keybox protruding as a neck and the heart-shaped soundholes. Seven strings are shown, of which five pass through the key box. This of course does not necessarily mean that it had that many melody-strings. There is no evidence of a trompette arrangement in the painting. Unlike the Haverö instrument, the keys are clearly shown and the position of the angelic musician’s left hand on the key box lid resembles the modern position.

The frescos show angels playing the hurdy-gurdy. This in some way indicates that the instrument cannot have been too socially despised, unlike the bagpipes, for example, which were nearly always depicted as being played by devils,animals, and in some cases by grotesque human musicians.

The appearance of both written and iconographic material from about the same period leads to the conclusion that the hurdy-gurdy cannot have been totally unknown in Denmark and Sweden in the fifteenth century. Nevertheless research does not enable to pinpoint the exact period of origin. The Swedish term hiwll harpa in a fifteenth century glossary indicates an even earlier origin. The reason may be that it could have taken considerable time for the instrument to become so commonly known as to have a name of its own, and it might have taken even longer for this name to find its way into the glossaries.

General description

The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument made to play by turning a wheel touching the strings as would a bow. lt has both melody strings and drones. i.e. continuously sounding bass strings. The melody strings are stopped by keys manouevered by the left hand, as a Swedish nyckelharpa (keyed fiddle). The wheel, constituing a “never-ending bow” is turned by a handle with the right hand. The sound can be raw and raspy or sweet and mellow. depending on the instrument itself and, even more importantly, the talent of the player.

There are almost as many variations in appearence as there are hurdy-gurdies, seen from the general European viewpoint. Suffice it to say that the shapes most common today in the wave of the revival, especially in France, i.e. lute- or guitar-shaped forms, are not among the six instruments considered typically Swedish. Their shapes seem reminiscent of instruments common all over Europe during the Middle Ages.

One feauture common to almost all hurdy-gurdies is the so-called trompette string with its moving bridge. Bouncing the handle around in the palm of the hand instead of revolving it evenly produces a buzzing sound caused by brief intermittent lifting of the bridge from the sounding board. The skilled player can with considerable practice, use this rattling or buzzing sound to rhythmicize the melody. This is a necessity with drone instruments in general. On the bagpipes there is for example a whole variety of melodic mniphrases to give an illusion of a discontinuous pipe sound, being interrupted as it would on a flute. The trompette (knarr in Swedish) string of the hurdy-gurdy has the same function and is very effective, especially when used in dance music. Only three of these instruments considered typically Swedish have been provided with such a “rhythmicizer”.

Names of the Hurdy-Gurdy

The predominant names for the hurdy gurdy in the Nordic countries have been lira, lire or lyra. We find them in written sources from the sixteenth century and onwards. The oldest known Swedish name, however, is hjulharpa, literally “harp with a wheel”. It is first found in a Swedish manuscript of the Latin grammar Catholicon, the latter completed by the monk Johannes Balbus in Genoa around 1260. Hiwll harpa and other variants appear in different sources, mostly glossaries, up to the mid-seventeenth century, after which it disappears completely and is replaces by lira/lyra in Sweden and liire/lire/lyre in Denmark and Norway.

While hiwll harpa would seem to be an authentic Swedish name, the lira etc. poses a tricky language problem. The word has been used for a variety of instruments since its original setting in the classical Greek, λιρα. Not only the mythological lyra or its popular Greek counterparts, such as the kithara and others, have been described as lyres. Lyra has also been used, especially among the educated classes, to denote stringed instruments in general. The context mostly helps to decide which one is intended. Sometimes music scholars make distinctions of their own to set the instrument in the “right places”. Names like bondlyra (peasant lira) or German bauernleier, savojardlira, tiggarlira (beggars lira), etc. all bear evidence of the way each looked upon the instrument. Hjulgiga “fiddle with a wheel”, appears in one source from the late seventeenth century but some writers also use it today.

One of the most common present-day names is vevlira, “lira with a crank”, which was put forward by a Swedish researcher named Jan Ling. In his renowned work on the Swedish nyckelharpa, he uses it exclusively. His reason was obviously to clearly specify the lira. It is important to note, however, that vevlira has no etymological basis whatsoever. The same also applies to the Danish drejelire (turned lira).

Not only the mythological lyra or its popular Greek counterparts, such as the kithara and others, have been described as lyres. Lyra has also been used, especially among the educated classes, to denote stringed instruments in general. The context mostly helps to decide which one is intended. Sometimes music scholars make distinctions of their own to set the instrument in the “right places”. Names like bondlyra (peasant lira) or German bauernleier, savojardlira, tiggarlira (beggars lira), etc. all bear evidence of the way each looked upon the instrument. Hjulgiga “fiddle with a wheel”, appears in one source from the late seventeenth century but some writers also use it today.

Another name, with a somewhat mystical background is symphonie, with variations. In Medieval Europe this was the most common name for the hurdy-gurdy. Later, it was mostly replaced by national-oriented names, but in some French dialects and in Spanish it still prevails. Symphonie is however also found in Nordic sources, especially in the Icelandic sagas. As these often relate to the Vikings on their voyages throughout Europe, terms like symfón may very well denote the hurdy-gurdy, though this in no way proves that the instrument was used within the Nordic countries. Symphonie lingered on as an instrumental term in these countries until the early Eighteenth century. The meaning is less clear, but it seems to denote a small portable keyboard instrument like the clavichord.

Although the hurdy-gurdy was generally an instrument that travelled all the way up and down through the social strata, its social position in the Nordic countries seems to have been firmly set among beggars and vagabonds, but also, to a lesser extent, in the rural population. The Norwegian born Danish playwright Ludvig Holberg’s use of it in some of his plays does not seem to have changed this.

The same goes for the Swedish poet Carl Michael Bellman, whose sometimes very realistic poetical accounts of Eighteenth century musical life often mention the lira. Not even the great vogue for foreign plays, operas and vaudevilles with Savoyard themes during most of the Nineteenth century did much to enhance its beggarly reputation.