Music of Norway

Much has been learned about early music in Norway from physical artifacts found during archaeological digs. These include instruments such as the lur. Viking and medieval sagas also describe musical activity, as do the accounts of priests and pilgrims from all over Europe coming to visit St Olav's grave in Trondheim.
In the later part of the 19th century, Norway experienced economic growth leading to greater industrialization and urbanization. More music was made in the cities, and opera performances and symphony concerts were considered to be of high standards. In this era both prominent composers and performers combined the European traditions with Norwegian tones.
The import of music and musicians for dance and entertainment grew, and this continued in the 20th century, even more so when gramophone records and radio became common. In the last half of the 20th century, Norway, like many other countries in the world, underwent a roots revival that saw indigenous music being revived.

Traditional and folk music

Before 1840, there were limited written sources of folk music in Norway. Originally these historical attainments were believed to have a distinct Christian influence. As research continued, there were also mythical and fairy tale connections to the folk music. Overall the purpose of folk music was for entertainment and dancing.
Norwegian folk music may be divided into two categories: instrumental and vocal. As a rule instrumental folk music is dance music. Norwegian folk dances are social dances and usually performed by couples, although there are a number of solo dances as well, such as the halling. Norway has very little of the ceremonial dance characteristic of other cultures. Dance melodies may be broken down into two types: two-beat and three-beat dances. The former are called halling, gangar or rull, whereas the latter are springar or springleik.
Traditional dances are normally referred to as bygdedans. These dances, sometimes called "courting dances" were often connected to the important events of rural life: weddings, funerals and cyclical feasts like Christmas.
Folk music in Norway falls in another 2 main categories based in the ethnic populations from which they spring: North Germanic and Sami.
Traditional Sami music is centered around a particular vocal style called joik. Originally, joik referred to only one of several Sami singing styles, but in English the word is often used to refer to all types of traditional Sami singing. Its sound is comparable to the traditional chanting of some First Nations/Native Americans cultures.
Traditional North Germanic Norwegian vocal music includes, ballads and short, often improvised songs, among the most common types of traditional music. Work songs, hymns, tralling vocals and broadside ballads have also been popular.
Norway shares some Nordic dance music tradition with its neighbouring countries of Sweden and Denmark, where the most typical instrument is the fiddle. In Norway, the Hardanger fiddle, the most distinctive instrument in Norwegian folk music, looks and plays similar to a standard violin. It is only to be found primarily in the western and central part of the country. The Hardanger fiddle dates back to around 1700 and differs from the ordinary fiddle in many respects. The most important of these is that it has sympathetic strings and a less curved bridge and fingerboard. Thus, the performer plays on two strings most of the time, creating a typical bourdon style. The Hardanger fiddle tradition is rich and powerful. By traditional, orally conveyed instruction was one of the most important aspects of a Hardanger fiddle player's accomplishment.
Epic folk songs are the most important form of vocal folk music in Norway. Although there are many types of epic folk songs, the most intriguing are the medieval ballads. They were first transcribed in the 1800s, but the ballad tradition has been handed down from the Middle Ages. The lyrics of these songs also revolve around this period of history, recounting tales of the lives of nobles, and of knights and maidens. A number of the ballads describe historical events, and they are often dramatic and tragic.
In the second half of the 19th century, some fiddlers, especially those from Voss and Telemark, significantly Lars Fykerud, began introducing more expressive ways of playing, turning the traditional slått music to concert music for the urban classes.
At the same time, new dances and tunes were imported from Europe, including the fandango, reinlender, waltz, polka and mazurka. These forms are now known as runddans or gammeldans.
Perhaps the most popular and controversial of modern Hardanger fiddle artists is Annbjørg Lien, who released her first album, Annbjørg in 1989. The album featured Helge Førde and Frode Fjellheim and was both praised for its innovative fusion work and expressive style, and criticized for its watering-down of traditional sounds and a lack of regional tradition.
Other Norwegian traditional instruments include:

As of today, there is an eclectic use of both folk music and its traditional instruments. Interest in folk music is growing, and there are a number of promising young performers. They are not only drawn to instrumental music, however. Many young people are now learning to sing in the traditional style. During the past few decades, folk musicians have shown a greater interest in experimentation. A new generation has emerged which, while showing respect for the old traditions, is also willing to think along new lines. A number of well-known folk music artists in Norway have made excellent recordings using new instruments and new arrangements. In recent years artists like Gåte and Odd Nordstoga have made folk music more accessible to younger crowds. Gåte fused folk music with metal and became very popular. Lumsk is another band mixing Norwegian traditional folk music with metal. The most famous Sami singer is undoubtedly Mari Boine, who sings a type of minimalist folk-rock with joik roots. Karl Seglem is a Norwegian musician and composer who plays saxophone and bukkehorn. Sofia Jannok is also a popular Sami contemporary artist.
There are also some important institutions, for example the National Association of Folk Musicians. It is an organization founded in 1923 for folk music artists and folk dancers and it is primarily a union for local and regional folk music associations, but it is also open to individual members. As of 1990, the national association had 6,000 members from approx. 125 different local organizations. The National Association of Folk Musicians publishes Spelemannsbladet, a folk music journal that comes out 12 times a year. It also arranges the annual Landskappleiken, which is the most important event of its kind in Norway.
Folk music has a distinct part of Norwegian history, and most historical collection was done by L.M Lindeman. A large part of the collections are maintained and preserved in the National Folk Music Collection and at the National Library.
Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation uses and includes recordings of folk music from the archive of NRK, which contains over 50,000 recordings from 1934 until today, in addition to other recordings in the radio channels and the specialized radio channel NRK Folkemusikk.

Classical music

During the 1600s cities of Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim "each had their own city musicians." The first important classical composers from Norway are documented from the beginning of the 18th century, when they composed dance and chamber music, including cantatas. Some of these composers are Georg von Bertouch, Johan Daniel Berlin and Johan Henrik Berlin. In addition, music also received some interested from the public in which music developed steadily especially in more affluent urban areas. Moreover, around the 1750s private or semi-public music societies started appearing in several cities, given an opportunity for the wealthier population to enjoy. In 1814, Sweden entered into a union with Norway, and the Swedish royal family spent time in Norway's capital, Christiania. At their royal court, music flourished.

National Romanticism

, a movement that was prevalent throughout Europe, touched Norway as well, and began to affect classical musicians and classical music in the country. The violinist Ole Bull was the first major Norwegian musician. He became world-famous starting in about 1834, playing not only in Norway but also in other parts of Europe and the US, and was known as the Nordic Paganini. In addition, a few other great composers emerged including Halfdan Kjerulf, Martin Andreas Udbye who composed the first Norwegian opera Fredkulla, and Rikard Nordraak who composed the Norwegian national anthem "Ja, vi elsker dette landet".
From about 1831, traditional Norwegian music began to influence the classical scene, especially through Bull, who befriended the famous traditional Hardanger fiddle player Myllarguten and through the friendship gained better understanding of traditional music. Bull himself started playing the Hardanger fiddle, and was the first to present folk tunes to the public in urban areas. He also saw to that Myllarguten played with him in concert, presenting a rural traditional musician to an urban audience for the very first time, in February 1849, at the very height of Norwegian romantic nationalism. This later inspired Edvard Grieg to look for folk musical sources. But urban audiences were slow to gain an appreciation and understanding of traditional music. Romanticism style dominated Norwegian music "until well into the 20th century, whether expressed through modifications to the national Romantic idiom of Grieg or through a more classical/international line" like Catharinus Elling or Halfdan Cleve.
Foreign musicians began settling in Norway in the 1840s, bringing with them musical knowledge from the rest of Europe. Following the French Revolution of 1848, Norway saw the development of a strong national consciousness, as well as economic growth which occurred the development of music. In comparison to most other countries of this period, female Norwegian musicians were widely accepted, and were even published and given stipends by the state.
File:Norske komponister ved Musikkfesten i Bergen, 1898.jpg|thumb|left|1898 Music festival in Bergen by Agnes Nyblin. Left to right: Christian Cappelen, Catharinus Elling, Ole Olsen, Gerhard Rosenkrone Schelderup, Iver Holter, Agathe Backer Grøndahl, Edvard Grieg, Christian Sinding, Johan Svendsen and Johan Halvorsen
With Norwegian nationalism burgeoning, the musical scene throughout the country entered the Golden Age of Norwegian Music, led by Halfdan Kjerulf and organist and collector Ludvig Mathias Lindeman. The Golden Age's most prominent composers included Johan Svendsen and Edvard Grieg. Bull's efforts directly inspired Grieg to look for folk musical sources. These composers, inspired by Lindeman's collections and Ole Bull's Hardanger fiddling, incorporated Norwegian folk elements into their compositions.
At the end of the 19th century, the collection of folk tunes continued unabated, and composers like Christian Sinding and Johan Halvorsen were well known. Following the dissolution of the union with Sweden in 1905, Norwegian nationalism continued to grow in popularity and innovation, led especially David Monrad Johansen, Geirr Tveitt and Eivind Groven. These composers looked towards using folk music in their compositions, a trend that continued well into World War II, through a process of internationalization began in the 1930s, easily heard in composers like Ludvig Irgens-Jensen, Bjarne Brustad, Harald Sæverud and Klaus Egge. In between the wars, only a few composers, like Pauline Hall and Fartein Valen, were significantly influenced by foreign styles.