Music of Minnesota - History

History

The music of Minnesota has its roots with the music of the Native Americans of the area. Traditional arrangements are generally based around vocal, percussive and dance music; Dakota folk songs can be celebratory, martial or ceremonial. Early European settlers (French and Métis voyageurs) brought French chansons, which they sang while traveling along their fur trade routes. These songs were described by one visitor as "light, airy & graceful", and were often adapted to the rhythm of their paddles while canoeing. Later European settlers also brought with them traditional folk and classical music, especially choral and Christian-themed music, opera, and varieties of ethnic folk music including Slavic and Scandinavian styles. Modern-day traditional dance music is based mostly around schottisches, polkas and waltzes with instrumentation including fiddle, mandola, accordion and banjo.

The first singing school in Minnesota opened in St. Anthony (now part of Minneapolis) in 1851. The Plymouth Congregational Church of Minneapolis began a singing group in 1857, followed by the first such club for women only, the Lorelei Club (later the Ladies' Thursday Musical Chorus), in 1892.

Thousands of Norwegians settled in Minnesota in the last half of the 19th and first quarter of the 20th century. Subcultures formed based around village of origin (bygde), and then formed organizations to maintain their home dialect and musical traditions. These organizations held annual meetings (stevne) which featured folk dancing, singing, fiddling and poetry. In the late 1860s, male choirs with Norwegian and Swedish singers formed in cities and Lutheran colleges in Minnesota. These choirs sang a variety of popular and patriotic songs, hymns and folk tunes. In the 1880s, these choirs inspired the organization of singing societies that sponsored music festivals; in 1886, five singing clubs joined to become the Union of Scandinavian Singers, and the Norwegian Singers Association of America has met biannually since 1910.

The end of the 19th century also saw the foundation of two long-running music groups, the Thursday Musical Chorus and the Apollo Men's Musical Group. Two of the most important Minnesota musical institutions were founded in the early 20th century, namely the MacPhail School of Violin (1907, later becoming the MacPhail Center for Music) and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (1903, later the Minnesota Orchestra).

Minneapolis became a home for vaudeville comedy known as bondkomik (rustic humor), which featured multi-act plays, dances, songs and monologues. Vaudeville shows usually ended with social dancing. Minneapolis' most famous performers were the Norwegian-descended Eleonora and Ethel Olson and Ernest and Clarence Iverson (Slim Jim & the Vagabond Kid), and Swedish immigrant Hjalmar Peterson, whose company dominated the stage for two decades before the Great Depression. General enthusiasm for Scandinavian musicals diminished in the face of intense propaganda and agitation toward foreign influence following the end of World War I, a process which was accelerated by the economic decline of the 1930s, and by the outbreak of World War II. Rural and regional dance music slowly died out, and became largely unknown. During this era, however, the Leikarring movement (song-dances without instrumental accompaniment) began. Leikarring celebrated national Norwegian folk dance and song through musical societies like Minnesota's Norrona Leikarring.