Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes

Subject: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: GUEST,Barry Winkworth
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 05:28 AM

Since posting a link to Boreas' version of North Sea Holes on another thread, I've been listening again to their album Ahoy Hoy.

Well worth buying!

I've been able to track down information on three of the four tunes played in Track 6 Happy Set (that is, Bat’ an Tàilleir [The Tailor’s Stick],The Shepherd’s Crook and Geld Him Lasses, Geld Him but I can't find anything on the first tune, Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes

A cracking tune; can anyone shed any light on its origins or history, please?

Liner notes say it's traditional.

The title seems to translate as Hamburger after Lars Lefdalsnes?.

Who was Lars Lefdalsnes? Does Hamborgar mean something other than a meaty patty in Norway?

A google search just leads to the Boreas album.

Bandcamp link: Boreas - Happy Set

All the best,
Barry

Subject: RE: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: GUEST,Mysha
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 06:07 AM

Hi,

Well, Norwegians would be a puzzle for a different day, but in Danish a "Hamborger" is a pair dance (or two).

Bye
Mysha

Subject: RE: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: GUEST,Barry Winkworth
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 06:29 AM

A pair dance? That makes more sense.

Subject: RE: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: GUEST,Barry Winkworth
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 06:42 AM

I'm more interested in the tune but, with the insight provided by Mysha's post above, I found this:

Hamborgar

Barry

Subject: RE: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: GUEST,Barry Winkworth
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 01:13 PM

This has opened up a whole new world for me to explore.

And a reminder not to trust Google Translate.

I've been listening to the albums of Honndalstausene and many of the track titles have the form:

[Dance style] etter [Musician]

so I'm guessing 'etter' in this context means 'by'

Would love to know more as the usual internet sources aren't very helpful for this monolinguist.

And what about Teige-Ola, Gamle-Lars Thomasgård, Kristense Mardal, Magne Maurset, Jon Rosenlid and Anders Reed?

All the best
Barry

Subject: RE: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 01:30 PM

> I'm guessing 'etter' in this context means 'by'

Nope, it means "after" as you thought in the first place. It means that the tune was collected or learnt from the person named. Whether he did indeed write it or whether he got it from someone else is left open.

The same applies to many Swedish tunes, except that in Swedish it's "efter" instead of "etter".

Subject: RE: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: GUEST,Barry Winkworth
Date: 27 Aug 20 - 02:03 PM

Thank you, Richard, things are becoming clearer.

Subject: RE: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: leeneia
Date: 28 Aug 20 - 07:32 PM

Yes, if a composer (say Johann Schikle) writes a piece, and I come along and change it, perhaps making it faster, slower, major or minor, or having a different number of repeats, then I might say that mine is "Something-or-Other after Johann Schikle." This shows that Johann gets the credit for the creative work, while I get credit for making it more interesting, or whatever I did.

The dance name Hamborgar probably means "dance from Hamburg." In German, we take the name of a city, add -er and get a noun or adjective which means "from that city." Now, we are used to that with respect to sausages, but in Europe it works for anything from that city. It looks like this works in Danish, too.

Wiener - thing or person from Wien (Vienna)
Frankfurter - from Frankfurt
Berliner - from Berlin

However, if the person is female, I believe you add "in" at the end.

Subject: RE: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: GUEST,GUEST, AnMal in Sweden
Date: 29 Aug 20 - 10:14 AM

There are varieties of the hamborgar all over Scandinavia, and as far as I know they have the same origin but both the tunes called "homborgar" "hamburksa" etc and the dances with the same names can vary a lot in style from region to region. And I haven't found any origin for the dance either, but it's probably just as "Hamburgian" as polska is polish (i e very little) :).

Quote from leeneia: "Yes, if a composer (say Johann Schikle) writes a piece, and I come along and change it, perhaps making it faster, slower, major or minor, or having a different number of repeats, then I might say that mine is "Something-or-Other after Johann Schikle." This shows that Johann gets the credit for the creative work, while I get credit for making it more interesting, or whatever I did."

Except that it doesn't work like this in reality :). I grew up with this tune naming tradition and it gets very confusing. Sometimes the "after X" actually means X wrote the tune. And as (I think?) you described above, sometimes Y learns and modifies the tune by X and the tune can now be referred to by Y as for example "Polska after X" and by the people who play it more in the style of Y as "Polska after Y" with no reference to X at all. Often, it was well known by all the people who knew X and Y who wrote the tune originally after all, so they just wanted to make it clear whose style they played it in.

But sometimes a tune (let's say it's that nifty little polska that X once wrote) gets traded down by so many different musicians in so many different places and with so many variations that people stop bothering with who they learned the tune from and whose style they're playing it in, because everyone knows it's the same old polska anyway, so they just pick a name from the long line and stick with that. The poor little tune may now be known to future generations as "polska after Z" even if Z just learned it from Y who learned it from X and it's been published in some collection in a transcription of Å:s or Ö:s playing (Swedish alphabet because the English one has too few letters for my example).

It's sometimes annoying with this naming tradition when you want to know more about where a tune actually came from or if you're just trying to find it and only know it as "Å:s polska" but most people call it "Polska after Z".However, it's nice to have the focus less on individual creation of tunes and more on the process of learning and adaption of tunes.

Subject: RE: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: leeneia
Date: 29 Aug 20 - 03:14 PM

Yes. Why does it matter where a little dance tune came from? And even if you learn the name of the person who probably composed it, you know nothing of that person's life.

I grow weary of people who will talk and talk about origins and never seem to sing or play anything.

Subject: RE: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: GUEST,Barry Winkworth
Date: 03 Sep 20 - 11:21 AM

leeneia,

You really shouldn't be forced to endure the wearisome conversations that occur on mudcat. If you give me the name of the person who is compelling you to come on here, I'll pop round and give him a darn good thrashing.

In the meantime, if I can be excused my curiosity and desire to learn, can anyone tell me who Lars Lefdalsnes is/was? A collector? Composer?

Barry

Subject: RE: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 14 Jan 21 - 03:14 AM

I found this site and thread via Google search

Does anyone know who Lars Lefdalsnes is?

Gordon

Subject: RE: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: GUEST,Michael
Date: 16 May 22 - 06:29 AM

Anybody here familiar with Norwegian folk music know if there is a publication containing this tune?

Michael

Subject: RE: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: GUEST
Date: 19 May 22 - 05:39 AM

An attempt at the ABC:

X:8
T: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
T: (Taken from the album "Ahoy Hoy" by Boreas)
C: Trad. Norway
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K:Dmaj
|Ac|d2fe dcdB|A2F2 F2FA|G2E2 E2EG|F2A FD2Ac|d2fe dcdB|A2F2 F2FA|G2E2 E2Ac|d6:|
K:Amaj
|:Ac|e2e2 edce|a2c2 cAce|d2B2 B2Bd|c2ec A2Ac |e2e2 edce|a2c2 cAce|d2B2 B2eg|a6:|

Subject: RE: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 May 22 - 04:32 PM

Oh, darn. This is a thread that lost several messages during our crash. The missing messages appear to have been overwritten - nor at least I can't find them.

I'm wondering if there is any relation between the Hamborgar and the "Hambo" dance that is commonly done at breaks in contradances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambo

Subject: RE: Origins: Hamborgar etter Lars Lefdalsnes
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 20 May 22 - 04:40 AM

> I'm wondering if there is any relation between the Hamborgar and the "Hambo" dance that is commonly done at breaks in contradances.

In a word, no. Here's one version of Hamborgar, which is similar to a polka, in 2/4 or 4/4 time. Hambo is a derivative of Swedish polska, in 3/4 time. There is a fairly standard version of Hambo that is widely done, though there are also other versions that were collected from various places.