Music of Emerstari

Villem Karl Stenhammer, Baron of Ebsstad, (1862-1941) is one of the most renowned Emerstarian classical composers.

Emerstari is perhaps most known in terms of music for its traditional music, which persisted through the twentieth century and still into the twenty-first century, even when many traditional music forms lost popularity to newer genres internationally. Traditional Emerstarian music shares roots with the music of its neighbors and can be marked by its use of fiddles, flutes, frame drums, and pipes. Various sorts of horns as well as the lur are noticeable features as well.

Classical music arrived to Emerstari in the early eighteenth century from Marseile, around the time which many Emerstarian national songs were written, such as "Regel Emerige!" and "Der Kuingssång." Despite this, many of the most famous Emerstarian classical composers did not appear until the Emerstarian Golden Age in the nineteenth century, including the likes of Villem Karl Stenhammer, Frederik Lars Alfssen, and Håkon Per Ljunden. When the popularity of classical music waned in the 1930s and folk resurged, a derivative form of music, swing music, began to find success as well.

Market music, as the Emerstarian word mærktskemusik for "popular music" indirectly translates, came to Emerstari in the late-1970s and early-1980s with the tours of foreign musical groups of various genres, primarily rock and pop. There are Emerstarian rock and pop groups, but most of the music in these two genres among several others is imported. Rap and metal music has a market in Emerstari, but these genres and genres akin to them are generally viewed poorly and are associated with crime and anti-Church values respectively. Both are associated with cultural invasion.

Early music

A traditional Emerstarian hardanger fiddle.

Horns and lurs are among the oldest instruments in Emerstari, and they are believed to have originated with herding calls used by Emerstarians to call back livestock from wherever they may have been grazing. It's believed that a man may have played the horn while a woman sang. The introduction of Christianity into Emerstari brought with it an assortment of hymns and chants, but these were mostly only known by the clergy and educated as they were in Etrescian. It was not until troubadours and monks such as Oluf Treggesson or Jakob the Scribe began to translate old and compose new Christian music in Emerstarian that it received general popularity.

Folk music

There earliest evidence of fiddles in Emerstari is in the form of a hardanger fiddle dating to the AD 800s. With the introduction of fiddles into Emerstari, something similar to modern Emerstarian folk music begins to appear, especially with the appearance of pipes in the 1100s. Not too many written songs survive from this period, suggesting there may have been oral traditions (though this theory does not account for the fact that many sagas, poems, and songs from earlier periods can be found in writing), but there is believed to have been a flourishing culture of music during the mid- to late-Middle Ages in Emerstari and into the fourteenth century. Disease and famine in the 1360s, the Marseilian Conquest of Emerstari in the 1380s, weak rule in the 1430s, and the War of the Emerstarian Succession in the 1440s, however, put an end to this supposed-musical golden age.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, folk music saw a gradual and subtle replacement with classical music with the composition of classical music to be put to lyrical songs and poems, especially in the many national songs which arose during these centuries. As a result of this, folk music saw a decline in popularity even into the nineteenth century; what there was of it, was even influenced by classical music in the fact that it was mostly instrumental. A development in folk music did come out of this period of decline, though: in this instrumental phase, some musicians began to pluck their fiddle's strings with a finger to create a new sound in the song. With the end of the Emerstarian Golden Age and a decline in the popularity of classical music after the deaths of the great Emerstarian composers, such as Stenhammer in 1941 or Frederik Lars Alfssen in 1922, folk music saw a resurgence in the 1930s and 1940s. The arrival of swing in the 1950s had little influence on Emerstarian folk music, but rock and pop brought with them guitars, and when some Emerstarian folk musicians began to adopt the guitar, a subgenre known as feldsmusik was developed.

Classical music

Håkon Per Ljunden conducting in Kuingsholm in 1938.

Classical music arrived to Emerstari in the late-seventeenth century from the courts of Marseile; Emerstarian classical composers appeared quickly and received patronage from Karl IV Lorens as well as by his nephew, Ervin III Karl, after his death. The father of Emerstarian classical music is generally recognized as Frederik Johann Kjellstrom; of the gentry, he formerly was recognized for writing folk pieces and national songs. However, he began to put these folk pieces and national songs to classical music, which contributed to folk's decline in popularity. Kjellstrom is an exception among the Emerstarian composers of the eighteenth century and early-ninteenth century, though, who did not find much recognition in history. It was not until the height of the Emerstarian Golden Age in the mid- and late-ninteenth century that many of the great Emerstarian composers appeared: Villem Karl Stenhammer, Baron of Ebbstad (1862-1941), a nobleman and a doctor by trade, began to compose music in the 1890s, and he became internationally renowned by the 1910s, becoming perhaps the most famous Emerstarian composer; Frederik Lars Alfssen (1859-1922), whose father had been a composer of mild success, began to compose music in the 1880s and found recognition nearly instantly, and he was often cited by Stenhammer as his inspiration; Håkon Per Ljunden (1865-1950), though he is perhaps the least famous of the three, was very close to the Emerstarian royal family since his childhood and saw his pieces performed at many royal gatherigs, having begun to compose in the 1890s. The deaths and retirements of the three great composers among the deaths and retirements of others led to the decline of classical music in Emerstari in its purest form and gave rise to a resurgence of folk. A derivative form of classical music arose as well, however: swing.

Swing music

Couple Anders Martin Perssen and Marie Elisabet Perssen, soloists despite their marriage, were two of the biggest swing artists in Emerstari from the 1940s until their deaths in the 1990s.

Swing music, known as storbandeskemusik (big band music), arose in the 1930s and 1940s, derived from classical music around the same time that folk music began its resurgence. Some, but not many, composers from the era of classical music composed and/or conducted the large bands which marked swing as a genre; the focus, however, was mostly switched from the instruments to the singer. Several Emerstarian musicians, Anders Martin Perssen, Karl Finn Lofstrom, Josef Frederik Erikssen, Per Jakob Lagmann, and Georg Nathanael Bjornssen, all from the Verni area became the most popular swing musicians of the era, and they often performed, filmed movies, or did events together, becoming known as the Svartskegrupp (Black group) in reference to their characteristic black suits. The Svartskegrupp became inactive by the 1990s with the aging of the group's members, and by the early 2000s, all of the members had died. The retirement of the Svartskegrupp marked the end of an era for swing music in Emerstari, and in the 2000s, a new generation of singers appeared. Among newer swing music, the band has begun to become less and less prevalent.

Other genres

Pop and rock music

Pop and rock music first arrived in Emerstari in the late-1970s and early-1980s, initally receiving great success. By the mid-1990s, the two genres' success had waned and normalized in competition with he established swing and folk. After the foreign introduction, many domestic pop and rock bands appeared and gained success, and some do still exist today, but by the 2000s, with its decline, most pop and rock music began to be imported from other Scanian countries, primarily from Rhenland, Roele, and Canaria.

Rap and metal music

Genres such as rap and metal, arriving to Emerstari relatively recently, exist as a niche in Emerstari, partially because of the general attitude in regards to them. Rap has attained an association with crime and unassimilated immigrants whereas metal and punk bands have received a reputation of being against the values of the Church of Emerstari and established traditions and hierarchies engrained in Emerstarian society like the nobility and the monarchy.