The Collection of the Folk Music Commission

Through this web presentation Svenskt visarkiv [The Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research] and Musikverket [Swedish Performing Arts Agency] give access to the large volume of music in Folkmusikkommissionen's [The Folk Music Commission] collections, and the collection of music books at the former Stockholm Music Museum (today Scenkonstmuseet [Swedish Museum of Performing Arts]). Since 2003, both these collections are administered by Svenskt visarkiv. Parts of the material have been published as Svenska låtar [Swedish tunes] (1922–1940) and Svenska folkliga koralmelodier från Gammalsvenskby och Estland [Swedish Folk Hymns from Gammalsvenskby and Estonia] (1945), which are still available in reprint from Svenskt visarkiv. Svenska låtar only presents a small part of this collection, and in many cases tunes and songs have been more or less heavily edited. Here you can now browse through the whole original material – about 45,000 pages of tunes and songs in the form they came to the collections of Folkmusikkommissionen and the former Stockholm Music Museum.

Our hope is that the digitisation and presentation of the material on the web will attract and inspire performers in various musical areas, teachers, researchers, composers, etc. to use these large collections. This is part of the mission of Svenskt visarkiv and completely in the spirit of the original Folkmusikkommissionen.

The material is freely available for searching, download and printing for personal use. The copyright of the digital images and the database itself rests with The Swedish Performing Arts Agency and for publishing permission from Svenskt visarkiv is needed.

If you have comments and questions about the web presentation, please contact Svenskt visarkiv.

© The Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research 2007–2024.

This website uses cookies.

Read about how the Swedish Performing Arts Agency processes personal data.