Nyckelharpa - the key-fiddle The nyckelharpa has been in Sweden for a long time, and is pictured in old church paintings. The oldest painting is dated c. 1350 and is on the island of Gotland. The majority of paintings are however in the province of Uppland, the area with Uppsala in the centre, north of Stockholm. The oldest surviving instrument is now in the Zorn museum in the province of Dalarna ('the Dales') and is dated to 1526. What's special about the nyckelharpa and its sound is that it has sympathetic strings - one for each semitone in the scale - and of course the keys which have given the fiddle its name. You could say it's like a hurdy-gurdy played with a bow. The nyckelharpa has passed through several stages of development during the centuries and Eric Sahlström is probably the one who has made it what it is today. I have worked and discussed things with Enar Magnusson who builds my fiddles and we have made a few changes which we think have further developed the instrument without changing its sound or character. The
bow-maker is called Jean-Claude Condi and lives in France.
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