Music
Songs for dark times
‘In the dark times, will there also be singing?’
‘Yes. There will also be singing. About the dark times.’
— Bertolt Brecht
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When Geneviève was 16, she already had a deep love for early music. Whilst scouring the library for recordings for a project, she came upon a track entitled Swedish Dance Tune by Anonymous. The track featured what she could only describe as ‘the saddest violin.’ Though there was no way to know what the instrument was, she fell in love with the sound of it. Ten years later, a friend returned from Sweden bearing a strange instrument—a Nyckelharpa. By the first note she new she had found the sound she had been searching for.
The Nyckelharpa (or keyed fiddle/harp) is considered by many to be the quintessential national folk instrument of Sweden. While it is bowed instrument, like the violin, rather than a players fingertips shortening the string to change pitch, the nyckelharpa employs tangents along the neck, much like a hurdy-gurdy. The earliest possible depiction of the instrument dates back to approx. 1350 in Gotland. The version Geneviève plays contains four playable strings—with the lowest string being a C drone, and G, C, A strings with corresponding rows of keys that change pitch. Underneath the four played strings lie a total of twelve sympathetic strings, tuned to each half step of the scale, which resonate when the instrument is played, creating it’s otherworldly sound.
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