Music of the minstrels & courtiers
with Ida Meidell (baroque violin) and Johan Hedin (nyckelharpa)
Works by Anders Ekbäck, Gösta Nyström, Johan Helmich Roman, Anders Gustaf Rosenberg, Samuel Wåhlberg, Fredrik Salling, Johan Eric Blomgren, Nils Andersson, Anders Fredrik Alard, Georg Friedrich Händel
Funny and artistic, dance-like and subtle - these need not be opposites. The music of minstrels and courtiers was not so far apart in the 17th and 18th centuries. And the musicians who played them were often the same, just on different occasions and in different places.
Ida Meidell and Johan Hedin take us back to the music of the castle and country courts with baroque violin and nyckelharpa, a kind of keyboard violin that can sound similar to a hurdy-gurdy. Both musicians have been moving confidently between historical performance practice and Swedish folk music for years. Ida Meidell performs with European baroque ensembles, including François Lazarevitch's Musiciens de Saint-Julien. Johan Hedin is considered one of the most influential nyckelharpa players of our time and has decisively developed the ancient instrument with his own constructions and playing techniques.
As a duo, which made its debut at the Korrö Folk Festival in 2019, they trace precisely those resonances between the Swedish minstrel tradition of the 18th century and European Baroque music that this program tells of.
