Ulla! min Ulla! säj får jag dig bjuda

Pastoral setting: the view towards Stockholm from Djurgården in Bellman's time. Watercolour by Elias Martin, c. 1790

Ulla! min Ulla! säj, får jag dig bjuda (Ulla! my Ulla! say, may I thee offer), is one of the Swedish poet and performer Carl Michael Bellman's best-known and best-loved songs, from his 1790 collection, Fredman's Epistles, where it is No. 71. A pastoral, it depicts the Rococo muse Ulla Winblad, as the narrator offers her "reddest strawberries in milk and wine" in the Djurgården countryside north of Stockholm.

The epistle is subtitled "Till Ulla i fönstret på Fiskartorpet middagstiden en sommardag. Pastoral dedicerad till Herr Assessor Lundström" (To Ulla in the window in Fiskartorpet at lunchtime one summer's day. Pastoral dedicated to Mr Assessor Lundström).

Context

Carl Michael Bellman is the central figure in Swedish song, known for his 1790 Fredman's Epistles and his 1791 Fredman's Songs. He played the cittern, accompanying himself as he performed his songs at the royal court.[1]

Jean Fredman is a fictional character and the supposed narrator in Bellman's epistles and songs, based on a real watchmaker of Bellman's Stockholm.[2] The epistles paint a picture of the demimonde life of the city during the eighteenth century, where strong drink and beautiful "nymphs" like Ulla Winblad create a rococo picture of life, blending classical allusion and pastoral description with harsh reality.[1][2]

Song

The start of Fredman's Epistle no 71, Ulla, my Ulla, say may I thee offer reddest strawberries in milk and wine...

The song has three verses, each of 8 lines, with a chorus of 10 lines. The verses have the alternating rhyming pattern ABAB-CDCD.[3] The Assessor Lundström of the dedication was a friend of Bellman's and a stock character in the Epistles.[4]

The song is in 2
4 time, marked Allegro ma non troppo. The melody, unlike nearly all the rest of the tunes used in the Epistles, cannot be traced beyond Bellman himself and may thus be of his own composition. It is "spaciously Mozartian", with da capos at the end of each verse creating yet more space, before a sudden switch to a minor key for the chorus.[4] Bellman's song about Haga, "Porten med blommor ett Tempel bebådar" is set to the same tune.[5][6]

The song imagines the Fredman/Bellman narrator, seated on horseback outside Ulla Winblad's window at Fiskartorpet on a fine summer's day. Thirsty in the heat, he invites the heroine to come and eat with him, promising "reddest strawberries in milk and wine". As pastorally, but less plausibly for anyone who liked drinking as much as Fredman, he suggests "a tureen of water from the spring". The bells of Stockholm can be heard in the distance, as calèches and coaches roll into the yard.[4] The Epistle ends with a cheerful Skål! (Cheers!), as the poet settles "down beside the gate, in the warmest rye" with Ulla, to the "Isn't this heavenly" of the refrain.[3]

Reception

Bellman's biographer, Paul Britten Austin, describes the song as "the apogee, perhaps, of all that is typically bellmansk.. the ever-famous Ulla, min Ulla, a breezy evocation of Djurgården on a summer's day."[4]

Epistle 71 has been recorded by Mikael Samuelsson (Sjunger Fredmans Epistlar, Polydor, 1990),[7] Cornelis Vreeswijk and Peter Ekberg Pelz among others.[8] It has been translated into English by Eva Toller.[9]

Charles Wharton Stork's 1917 anthology calls Bellman a "master of improvisation"[lower-alpha 1][11] who "reconciles the opposing elements of style and substance, of form and fire ... we witness the life of Stockholm [including] various idyllic excursions [like Epistle 71] into the neighboring parks and villages. The little world lives and we live in it."[12] Stork's translation of Epistle 71 begins:

Ulla, mine Ulla, to thee may I proffer
Reddest of strawberries, milk, and wine,
Or a bright carp from the fen shall I offer,
Or but a bowl from the fountain so fine?[13]

Notes

  1. ↑ He was echoing King Gustav III's "Il signor improvisatore".[10]

References

  1. 1 2 "Carl Michael Bellmans liv och verk. En minibiografi (The Life and Works of Carl Michael Bellman. A Short Biography)" (in Swedish). The Bellman Society. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
  2. 1 2 Britten Austin, 1967. Pages 61–93.
  3. 1 2 Bellman, 1791.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Britten Austin, pages 155–156
  5. ↑ Massengale, page 200
  6. ↑ Byström, Olof (1966). "Med Bellman Pa Haga Och Norra Djurgarden" (PDF). Stockholmskällan. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
  7. ↑ "Mikael Samuelson – Sjunger Fredmans Epistlar". Discogs. Retrieved 12 March 2016.
  8. ↑ Hassler, page 284.
  9. ↑ Toller, Eva. "Glimmande nymf - Epistel Nr 71". Eva Toller. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
  10. ↑ Kleveland & Ehrén, 1984. page 6.
  11. ↑ Stork, 1917. page xvii
  12. ↑ Stork, 1917. page xix
  13. ↑ Stork, 1917. pages 16–17

Sources

  • Bellman, Carl Michael (1790). Fredmans epistlar. Stockholm: By Royal Privilege.
  • Britten Austin, Paul. The Life and Songs of Carl Michael Bellman: Genius of the Swedish Rococo. Allhem, Malmö American-Scandinavian Foundation, New York, 1967. ISBN 978-3-932759-00-0
  • Britten Austin, Paul. Fredman's Epistles and Songs. Stockholm: Proprius, 1990 and 1999.
  • Hassler, Göran; Peter Dahl (illus.) (1989). Bellman – en antologi [Bellman – an anthology]. En bok för alla. ISBN 91-7448-742-6. (contains the most popular Epistles and Songs, in Swedish, with sheet music)
  • Hassler, Göran; Peter Dahl (illus.) (1989). Bellman II – en antologi [Bellman – an anthology]. En bok för alla. ISBN 91-7448-837-6. (contains the remaining Epistles and Songs, in Swedish, with sheet music)
  • Kleveland, Åse; Svenolov Ehrén (illus.) (1984). Fredmans epistlar & sånger [The songs and epistles of Fredman]. Stockholm: Informationsförlaget. ISBN 91-7736-059-1. (with facsimiles of sheet music from first editions in 1790, 1791)
  • Massengale, James Rhea (1979). The Musical-Poetic Method of Carl Michael Bellman. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. ISBN 91-554-0849-4.
  • Stork, Charles Wharton. Anthology of Swedish lyrics from 1750 to 1915. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1917.
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