Down a Norwegian rabbit hole at Easter

A search for a tune I heard thirteen years ago has led all kinds of good places

For our honeymoon we went up the coast of Norway in search of the Northern Lights.

Norway is beyond stunning. But one night on the ferry there was a huge winter storm and we rolled around on the North Sea in the darkness for hours, with just a single lighthouse in the distance to give us any faint clue where the horizon was.

Some fishing boats appeared alongside at some point in the wee small hours, and I could see the guys heaving and hauling, even as the deck beneath them pitched up and down like a see-saw¹.

So you can imagine we were glad to see land. Arriving in Tronheim in the morning, we walked through sunny and deserted streets to the cathedral. A choir were practising. Maybe it was just being glad to be alive, but what they were singing was searingly beautiful.

I talked to them and made a note, but I must have messed up, because I could never find the piece - though I remembered they said it was in the Norwegian Psalmbook.

Back then I couldn’t find the Psalmbook online anywhere, but I looked again more recently and someone has made a playlist of a lot of it. Hurray!

The only slight problem is that there are 991 songs in the book, and thirteen years on, I can’t in truth remember exactly what I heard. But it is proving a wonderful rabbit hole to explore.

Norwegian is a pretty language to sing in - try this for example:

There’s some some really crunchy, beautiful stuff in there:

The Norsk Salmebok also includes favourites from other countries, so exploring it has led to a whole series of other rabbit holes.

For example, I appreciate that I am kind of late to this, but the work of Johann Crüger (1559-1662) is incredible:

So I’m still exploring, and haven’t found what I am looking for. But I have found lots of other magnificent things.

Happy Easter - or, as they say, god Påske.

1. At the time I was reading about the “Shetland Bus” - the little fishing boats that took resistance members into occupied Norway. The author made the point that no one has ever made such long journeys, in such small boats, at night, deliberately in the worst weather, to an unlit coast. It certainly gave me an appreciation of their achievement. I also noticed there’s a big white ensign hanging in Trondheim cathedral.