page_title: Fredmans epistlar
section_title: Fitted to music
hierarchical_section_title: Fredmans epistlar / Fitted to music
caption_attribution_description: English: Sheet music for Carl Michael Bellman's Epistle 80, "Liksom en herdinna", a pastorale
context_page_description: Fredmans epistlar is a collection of 82 poems set to music by Carl Michael Bellman, a major figure in Swedish 18th century song. Though first published in 1790, it was created over a period of twenty years from 1768 onwards. A companion volume, Fredmans sånger was published the following year.
  The Epistles vary widely in style and effect, from Rococo-themed pastorale with a cast of gods and demigods from classical antiquity to laments for the effects of Brännvin-drinking, tavern-scenes, and apparent improvisations. The lyrics, based on the lives of Bellman's contemporaries in Gustavian-age Sweden, describe a gallery of fictional and semi-fictional characters and events taking place in Stockholm. Jean Fredman, an alcoholic former watchmaker, is the central character and fictional narrator. The "soliloquy" of Epistle 23, a description of Fredman lying drunk in the gutter and then recovering in the Crawl-In Tavern, was described by Oscar Levertin as "the to-be-or-not-to-be of Swedish literature". Ulla Winblad, based on one of Bellman's friends, is the chief of the fictional "nymphs".
context_section_description: The critic Johan Henric Kellgren, in his introduction to the first edition, found that the songs could not be known fully only as poems. Never before, he stated, had the art of poetry and the art of music been more fraternally united. They were not, Kellgren argued, verse that had been set to music; not music, set to verse; but the two were so thoroughly melted together into One beauty that it was impossible to see which would most miss the other for its fulfilment. Quoting this in the final paragraph of his thesis, the musicologist James Massengale commented "That is how it ought to be said!"
  Massengale argues that, given that music is so important in the Epistles, and that Bellman had more than enough musical skill to write a tune, it is remarkable that all or almost all the tunes are borrowed. He suggests that this "seems to indicate that Bellman wanted to preserve some vestige of the borrowing." That the borrowing was not just about saving effort or making up for absent skill, Massengale argues, is demonstrated by the fact that the amount of work Bellman had to put into the melodies for Epistles 12 ("Gråt Fader Berg och spela") and 24 ("Kära Syster!") was "surely tantamount to the production of new melodies." Borrowing was accepted, even encouraged at the time, but that does not explain why Bellman would have done it so consistently. The "poetic possibility", Massengale suggests, is that Bellman wished to exploit the humorous contrast between a melody of one type and a story of another, or between an existing image associated with the melody, and a fresh one presented in an Epistle. In addition, Bellman was able to use what his audience knew to be borrowed music to reinforce the historical flavour of the Epistles, introducing exactly the kind of ambiguity that he was seeking.
  Massengale points out that in the Epistles, Bellman employs a variety of methods to make the poetry work. For example, in Epistle 35, Bröderna fara väl vilse ibland, Bellman uses a panoply of metrical devices to counteract the "metrically plodding melody". He uses the rhetorical figure anadiplosis (repeating the last word of a clause at the start of the next) in verse 3 with "...skaffa jag barnet; barnet det dog,..." (...got I the child; the child died...) and again in verse 4. He uses epanalepsis (repeating the first word of a clause at its end) in verse 3, with "Men, min Anna Greta, men!" (But, my Anna Greta, but!), and again in verse 5. And he uses anaphora (repeating a word at the starts of neighbouring clauses) in verse 4, "häll den på hjärtat, häll man fyra!" (pour ... pour out four!), and again in verse 5. Massengale observes that good musical poetry, like this Epistle, is always a compromise, as it has both to fit its music or be no good as a musical setting, and to contrast with its music, or be no good as poetry. The final verse, containing all three metrical devices, is not, argues Massengale, an example of "decay", but shows Bellman's freedom, change of focus (from lament to acceptance), and the closure of the Epistle.
caption: Sheet music for Fredman's Epistle 80, "Liksom en herdinna" (As a shepherdess), a pastorale
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