Movitz blåste en konsert (Movitz blew a concert) is epistle No. 51 in the Swedish poet and performer

Carl Michael Bellman Carl Michael Bellman (; 4 February 1740 – 11 February 1795) was a Swedish songwriter, composer, musician, poet, and entertainer. He is a central figure in the Swedish song tradition and remains a powerful influence in Swedish music, as wel ...

's 1790 song collection, ''

Fredman's Epistles ''Fredmans epistlar'' (English: ''Fredman's Epistles'') 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 year ...

''. The epistle is subtitled "Angående konserten på Tre Byttor" ("Concerning the concert at the Three Barrels"), naming a restaurant in Stockholm's

Djurgården Djurgården ( or ) or, more officially, , is an island in central Stockholm, Sweden. Djurgården is home to historical buildings and monuments, museums, galleries, the amusement park Gröna Lund, the open-air museum Skansen, the small resident ...

park. It was written after Bellman had become a court musician to the new King

Gustav III Gustav III (29 March 1792), also called ''Gustavus III'', was King of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination in 1792. He was the eldest son of King Adolf Frederick and Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden. Gustav was a vocal opponent of what he saw ...

in 1773. The melody was borrowed from

George Frideric Handel George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel ( ; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concerti. Born in Halle, Germany, H ...

's 1718 opera, ''

Acis and Galatea Acis and Galatea (, ) are characters from Greek mythology later associated together in Ovid's ''Metamorphoses''. The episode tells of the love between the mortal Acis and the Nereid (sea-nymph) Galatea; when the jealous Cyclops Polyphemus kil ...

''. The song describes a concert in an elegant setting, the performance taking place after an evening ball in a restaurant. It strikes a refined tone, mentioning the opera composer

Baldassare Galuppi Baldassare Galuppi (18 October 17063 January 1785) was a Venetian composer, born on the island of Burano in the Venetian Republic. He belonged to a generation of composers, including Johann Adolph Hasse, Giovanni Battista Sammartini, and C.&nbs ...

and the cellist and composer

Anton Fils Anton Fils (also Antonín Fils, Johann Anton Fils, Johann Anton Filtz), 22 September 1733 (baptized) – 14 March 1760 (buried) was a German classical composer. Fils was born in Eichstätt, in the Bishopric of Eichstätt, Bavaria. Long thou ...

. This does not prevent Bellman from making the song humorous, with opportunities for the performer to imitate musical instruments, for elegance to be contrasted with tavern life, and for the real world to be contrasted with classical mythology with mentions of Eol and

Neptune Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun. It is the List of Solar System objects by size, fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 t ...

. The epistle has at least twice been translated into English verse.

Context

Song

The epistle is subtitled "Angående konserten på Tre Byttor" ("Concerning the concert at the Three Barrels"), naming a restaurant in Stockholm's

park. The song describes a concert in an elegant setting, more formal than the earlier epistles, with the performance taking place after an evening ball in a restaurant.

Music

The song is in time. It has 6 verses, each consisting of 12 lines. The

rhyming pattern A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other. An example of the ABAB rh ...

is ABAB-CDCD-EEFE; the song was written in 1773, sometime from June onwards. Like epistle No. 12, the melody was borrowed from

's 1718 opera ''

'', in this case from the "Cyclops' Dance" or "".

Lyrics

Reception and legacy

The scholar of literature

Lars Lönnroth Lars Lönnroth (born 4 June 1935) is a Swedish literary scholar. He was born in Gothenburg to Erik Lönnroth and Ebba Lagercrantz. His academic career includes professorships at the University of California Berkeley, University of Aalborg and ...

writes that Fredman and his Bacchanalian congregation adapted to Bellman's new role as a royal poet. Epistle 51 reflects the musical soirée of May 1773 held by the theatre manager Carl Stenborg with leading artists and members of Stockholm's Music Academy to celebrate the coronation of King

. The places of the distinguished musicians are taken by Movitz, Mollberg, and Ulla Winblad, but they have left the noise of the tavern to appear as professional musicians in one of Stockholm's more elegant restaurants. The song ends with "Vivat vår monark!" ("Long live our Monarch!"), something that sounds more appropriate to a salon than a typical Fredman tavern. However, Lönnroth writes, that may not be correct, as the song still contains burlesque elements: how can Ulla be duetting with herself in the first verse? – and "fighting like Poles" (verse 2) does not sound very sophisticated either. He notes that suggests that the Three Barrels concert could be taken as a parody of royalist and

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...

cultural life. Still, a more refined tone is present, with talk of

arpeggio An arpeggio () is a type of Chord (music), chord in which the Musical note, notes that compose a chord are individually sounded in a progressive rising or descending order. Arpeggios on keyboard instruments may be called rolled chords. Arpe ...

s and a musical "air" by the Italian opera composer

(verse 3). Bellman switches, too, between the salon and the outside world, and between the real and the mythological. The last verse begins " Eol storms across the sky, Night's lamps are put out; it rains and squalls, and

from the water's surface casts ashore whales and his guests." After this, the singing and the music of bassoon and clarinettes resumes, a haven from the terrors outside.

Carina Burman Carina Burman (born 1960) is a Swedish novelist and literature scholar. Her research has been focused on Swedish 18th and 19th century literature. She completed her Ph.D. in literature in Uppsala in 1988 with a dissertation on the Gustavian era, G ...

comments in her biography that an elderly Bellman in the autumn of 1794 could still entertain his hosts with performances of the riotous wedding-epistle 40 ( Ge rum i Bröllopsgåln din hund!) and epistle 51, where he pretended to accompany himself with all the

wind instrument A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitch ...

s mentioned, so that the audience felt they were hearing

French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most o ...

clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...

tes,

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

s, and

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double-reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common type of oboe, the soprano oboe pitched in C, ...

. Everyone laughed more than they thought possible. The scholar of Swedish literature Staffan Björck calls the song a "bewitching music-epistle", and writes that Fredman's description constantly hovers between past and present. At the start of the first verse, Movitz "blew"; but at the end of the verse he addresses the audience in the present tense, "Let us be glad"; and the same pattern repeats in each subsequent verse, as "the now pushes itself forward and breaks through". Epistle 51 has been recorded by

Fred Åkerström Fred Bo Gunnar Åkerström (27 January 1937 – 9 August 1985) was a Swedish folk guitarist and singer particularly noted for his interpretations of Carl Michael Bellman's music, and his own work of the typically Swedish song segment named ''vi ...

on his 1969 album ''

Fred sjunger Bellman ''Fred sjunger Bellman'' (English: Fred sings Bellman) is an album by the Swedish folk singer-songwriter and guitar player Fred Åkerström and contains his interpretations of Carl Michael Bellman. The LP was released in 1969; it was re-released ...

''; by

Sven-Bertil Taube Sven-Bertil Gunnar Evert Taube (24 November 1934 – 11 November 2022) was a Swedish singer and actor. Internationally, he was perhaps better known for his acting career. Taube played Henrik Vanger in the film ''The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'' ...

on his 1987 album ''Fredmans Epistlar och Sånger''; and by Peter Ekberg Pelz on his 1985 album ''C. M. Bellman''. It has been translated into English verse by

Hendrik Willem van Loon Hendrik Willem van Loon (January 14, 1882 – March 11, 1944) was a Dutch-American historian, journalist, and children's book author. Life Van Loon was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the son of Hendrik Willem van Loon and Elisabeth Johanna H ...

in 1939 and by

Paul Britten Austin Paul Britten Austin (5 April 1922 – 25 July 2005) was an English author, translator, broadcaster, administrator, and scholar of Swedish literature. He is known in particular for his translations of and books on the Swedish musician, s ...

in 1977. The painter , planning to create an illustrated book of ''Fredman's Epistles'', created a genre painting of ''The Concert at Tre Byttor'', though he never completed the book. File:Neptune calming the Tempest Aeolus raised against the Fleet of Aeneas MET DP812447.jpg, Mythological imagery:

calming the tempest raised by

Aeolus In Greek mythology, Aiolos, transcribed as Aeolus (; ; ) refers to three characters. These three are often difficult to tell apart, and even the ancient mythographers appear to have been perplexed about which Aeolus was which. Diodorus Siculus m ...

. Engraving by Giulio Bonasone, 1531–1576 File:The Concert at Tre Byttor (Wilhelm Wallander) - Nationalmuseum - 18033.tif, ''The Concert at Tre Byttor'' by , 1860. Movitz (centre right) has laid down his oboe; Ulla Winblad (centre) is singing, and Christian Wingmark is playing the flute (centre left). Clarinettes are being played in the background; stringed instruments can be seen on both sides. File:Baldassare Galuppi, Venetian School of the 1750s.jpg, The Italian opera composer

is named in the song, providing an air of sophistication.

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * * * (contains the most popular Epistles and Songs, in Swedish, with sheet music) * (with facsimiles of sheet music from first editions in 1790, 1791) * * *

External links

Text of Epistle 51
at Bellman.net {{Carl Michael Bellman 1773 compositions Swedish songs Fredmans epistlar