Vendelpolskan by Viksta Lasse, Leonard Larsson

Made in July 1975 at the Vendel Eric Sahlström spelmansstämma/fiddlers gathering by
Leonard Larsson - Viksta Lasse. Our masters would never use the word ”compose”. They just made the tunes or put them together. In the late afternoon in the shade of the big maple trees Viksta Lasse had some fika (coffee). Suddenly he grabbed his fiddle (that was a gift from the Swedish king in the 1960-ies) and began to play a tune in three parts. In the next moment he forgot it. A couple months later a man comes up to him during a village party and plays for him a tune on his cassette recorder. The man asks: ”Do you recognize this?” Viksta Lasse´s answer was: ”I can hear that it is I playing but I do not recognize the tune.” So he learned his own tune from the recorder and decided to name it Vendelpolskan and to dedicate it to ”The master himself” Eric Sahlström. Us young fiddlers around these masters loved the tune and quickly learned it. We also found that it had many important qualities for fiddling courses so we began to use it a lot. This was during the huge folk music wave in the western world. The first two years Viksta Lasse played it in a very lively way but later he adjusted his manner to the students in the many courses where he was an appreciated guest and played it in a more tranquil way. If you listen on CZcams to ”Gubbskivan”, it begins with Vendelpolskan played in a tranquil way.