There are two well-known instruments with sympathetic strings in Scandinavia, the Swedish nyckelharpa and the Norwegian hardanger fiddle. Lesser known is that fiddles with sympathetic strings seems to have been quite common in Sweden, in particular during the 18th century. This was the golden age of the viola d’amore in Europe and the custom of adding sympathetic strings to Swedish instruments is most likely a result of this trend. After two hundred years of declining popularity fiddles with sympathetic strings have become more and more common since the late 1970’s, especially among folk musicians in Sweden.
Among the preserved Swedish fiddles with sympathetic strings, the vast majority are of a type where the pegs in the pegbox are ordered in two rows with the pegs for the playing strings in the upper row and pegs for typically eight sympathetic strings in the lower row. Due to the two levels in the pegbox the model has lately been given the unofficial name Double-deckers but later research has indicated that the model have its roots in Charles XII:s russian campaign and the Great northern war which ended in 1721. The soldiers Charles XII (Karl XII) were called Caroleans (Karoliner) and I have therefore tried to introduce the name Carolean fiddle (Karolinerfiol). When people got interested in older instruments in the 1970's it was probably natural to assume that the few preserved Swedish fiddles with sympathetic strings were related to the hardanger fiddle and that most instruments in Sweden were similar to them, due to the strong position for the hardanger fiddle in Norway. However, almost no such similar instruments has been found, and due to the evidence of the origin in the Great northern war where Norway and Sweden were on different sides there is no indications of any common origin.
Nobody knows exactly how many violins with sympathetic strings that have been built in Sweden throughout the centuries and thus it is impossible to tell if the preserved instruments is a large or small part of the total number. We also don’t know if carolean fiddles/double-deckers are preserved in a larger extent than other types but there are no indications of that. Of the current known historical fiddles with sympathetic strings, 23 of 27 are carolean fiddles/double-deckers. During the last years several double-deckers with four sympathetic strings has showed up and that means that references in literature to fiddles with four sympathetic strings might be both double-deckers or fiddles with a single row pegbox.
In addition to Swedish fiddles with sympathetic strings there are some instruments of other types that might provide us with additional information about the main subject of the page. All instruments on the page has been given some kind of name, most of them by me, and the main purpose is to make identification easier (rather than ID-numbers in the collections of museums etc). It would probably have been possible to find better names but I will stick to the ones I started with. You will also find some fiddles with sympathetic strings constructed in modern times and I provide some simple guides what to keep in mind when building fiddles with sympathetic strings.
I warmly welcome more information about the subject and I’m also glad to publish pictures of new or historical instruments related to Swedish fiddles with sympathetic strings, please email info [at] resoneramera [dot] se .
Swedish fiddles with sympathetic strings per type
Swedish fiddles with sympathetic strings per province
The map is a combination of the place where an instrument was found and where it was built. If the latter is known, the instrument will be counted twice. This was the best method to give a complete picture of the geographical spread of Swedish fiddles with sympathetic strings. Please note that the high number of instruments in Stockholm is due to the fact that it is the place of the Museum of performing arts and other museums.