Svenskt visarkiv
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Collections

Collections

The collections include audio and video recordings, hand-written and printed music, photographs, books, as well as personal and organisational archives in traditional music and dance, jazz and older popular music. The material is stored in climate archive facilities to ensure its long-term preservation. Contact Svenskt visarkiv’s office to search and gain access to the collections.

Recordings

Unique sound and film recordings, the archive’s own recordings as well as donated original recordings. The collection reflects the practices of traditional music, popular music and dance from the beginning of the 1900s. Contact the centre for further details.

Photographs

Unique photographs of musicians from various times and locations, from traditional musicians in the late 1800s, via older popular music and schlager artists, to jazz musicians from the 1920s to the present day. The collection consists of individual photographers' production, together with single frames from a wide range of donations.

Manuscripts and Chapbooks

The collection holds transcriptions of song texts, melodies and instrumental tunes made and preserved for posterity by collectors during a couple of centuries. Other items are chapbooks and broadsheets, in original and copies. Svenskt visarkiv also holds a large collection of personal hand-written songbooks from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Personal and Organisational Archives

Collections by important individuals and organisations within the centre’s specific genres of music and dance. Typical materials from personal archives include letters, photographs, notes, unreleased recordings, unpublished arrangements and newspaper clippings. Organisational archives often contain such items as records and accounts.

Dance

The work of the institute includes documentation of traditional and social dance in present-day Sweden as well as the preservation and accessibility of the cultural heritage of the genre. The collections include films, books, essays, dance descriptions, notation, photographs and newspaper clippings from dance associations, dance teachers, dance classes and seminars.