In the midsummer weekend of 1948, Swedish Radio directly transmitted a gathering of folk musicians from Visby. None of the personnel from the department of music wanted to travel to Visby on the Baltic island of Gotland to produce a folk music programme. Thus the assignment fell to the department’s youngest member. His name was Matts Arnberg.
His background was in classical music, and Arnberg hadn’t previously paid much attention to folk music. Yet during that midsummer weekend on Gotland he was ”delivered”. He has later told of how he wasn’t moved by the official part of the gathering, in which folk dancers and musicians performed well-rehearsed programmes. When, however, the ”bush” playing started, where the musicians were freer, he was almost stunned. ”This was music, quality music, music with substance - I had never heard folk music like it before.”
