How cultural institutions certify authenticity: A Swedish folk music case study
A 1956 Swedish folk music publication reveals how institutions build credibility by documenting sources, citing experts, and establishing provenance. The findings apply broadly to heritage organizations, museums, and cultural industries that must convince audiences their collections are genuine and representative.
Originaltitel: Sörmländska låtar av högsta klass: Värdetillskrivning, kvalitativa källkedjor och låthäftet 56 sörmländska låtar
<p>When the Södermanland Fiddlers' Association published the book 56 sörmländska låtar (56 tunes from Södermanland) in 1956 by the music publisher AB Nordisk Folkmusik, it was part of a larger aim to promote the survival of the folk music tradition in the region of Södermanland in Sweden. The booklet contains tunes arranged for fiddle and in some cases viola, a preface and comments to each tune. The purpose of the study is to use these comments to illustrate how a folk music repertoire is charged with values and how this attribution of values can be expressed. This is done through a close reading of the commentaries. A particular focus is on the provenance markings in the comments, but references to expert authorities and the securing of the qualitative source chains of the tunes, and how the representativeness of the tunes is formulated, is also exa-mined. The study shows the importance of both placing the tunes in a Södermanland context and, when this is done, of ensuring the quality of the tunes’ transmission history in various ways. The article concludes with a brief discussion of how the values of use and representation are expressed both in the booklet as such and in the preceding correspondence and other related material. Finally, it is noted that the booklet should be seen as a commercial product and that it was important for the publisher to be able to finance its activities in order to continue to promote Swedish folk music through the publication of sheet music.</p>