Welcome to the Norwegian Folk- and Popular Song Archives
The archives are a centre for documentation of Norwegian folk- and popular songs. The archives are open to the general public, and we answer questions on e-mail, telephone or ordinary mail.
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Norsk visearkiv |
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Postboks 2674 Solli |
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0203 Oslo |
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Norway |
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Henrik Ibsens gate 110 |
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(+ 47) 23 27 63 40 |
We can help you identifying songs, finding special songs or give you backgrounds for songs or genres.
Norsk visearkiv are in charge of a project with the purpose to publish every documentation of Norwegian traditional ballads on the Internet. These are folksongs corresponding to the English and Scottish ballads published by F. J. Child.
 Ballads in Norway
Publications
 Norske ballader (Norse medieval ballads)
30 ballader om drap og elskov, skjemt og lengsel blant riddere, jomfruer, kjemper og dyr
(30 ballads about murder and love, humour and yarning among knights, gigants and animals)
Text: Elin Prøysen, Astrid Nora Ressem og Velle Espeland. Illustrations: Elise Jarem.
Norsk visearkivs publikasjon 1
Published by Grappa Musikkforlag
It can be ordered here
This is an anthology which includes 30 selected Norwegian medieval ballads. It contains a booklet with 168 pages and two CDs with our foremost traditional singers. You can listen to the ballads, read the text and read about the history of our oldest folk songs and the background of each ballad. The booklet gives the texts as they are sung on the CD, but you can get a more complete text and the music as it was documented in the nineteenth century by clicking on the titles from this page.
 Traditional singing as a living process
Nordic Studies in stability and change, creativity and variation. (Tradisjonell sang som levende prosess) Red.: Lene Halskov Hansen, Astrid Nora Ressem og Ingrid Åkesson. Novus, Oslo. 2009. 211 s. Norsk visearkivs publikasjon 2 / Skrifter utgivna av Svenskt visarkiv 26.
A book about different aspects on variation and creativity in traditional song and singing, written by a group of ten academics, singers and teachers from Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
The book is written in the Nordic languages, but each contribution has its comprehensive summary in English.
Articles in English
The Lullabye. On the Problem of Typology for Non-narrative Folksongs
Chronological layers in a song repertoire
…all for his maiden fair
"Draumkvedet". From Fragments of a Folk Song to a National Cultural Treasure
Oral ballads as national literature |
