Episoder
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Come with me on a pilgrimage to the tiny mountain village of Vågå – together with 800 other people. They have been drawn there by one passion, one hunger. To hear the music of the Hardanger fiddle. Delicate and decorative – muscular and feisty. With this podcast, I am doing penance for past sins, having previously believed the Hardanger fiddle to be near-obsolete, a museum piece. And its music unsophisticated. How wrong I was! Hearing the instrument at its mysterious and magnificent best – as played by virtuoso Ottar Kåsa – opened a gateway for me to deep Norwegian culture. It achieves a modern miracle: to be vigorously and unsentimentally alive, while maintaining a musical inheritance. And it also connected up with the deep culture of my own background, on the west coast of Ireland.
EPISODE PHOTO
Detail of Hardanger fiddle made in 1911–12 by Olav Eivindsen Bakkene, Telemark i 1911-12. The instrument belongs to Telemark Museum.
From: digitalmuseum.no
Photo: Bård Løken
Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
MORE INFO
andrewjboyle(.)com
THANKS
to Ottar Kåsa for permission to use his recording of Høgsetbenken (springar after Myllarguten)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Hitler demanded that Vidkun Quisling should be Prime Minister. The king said: No! With that, all possibility of compromise was closed off for King Haakon and his government. It was a decision that put them in extreme danger. No monarch or head of state was killed by the Nazis during the war – but on April 11th 1940, they not only tried to assassinate King Haakon, they were also convinced they had succeeded. In fact, the king and politicians evaded the bombing raids on Elverum and Nybergsund. They moved northwards from place to place – to avoid detection and to bolster the spirits of the ever-more beleaguered defence forces. But they finally had to sail for England and exile. As the figurehead of Norwegian resistance, the king’s work from England was of huge significance for Norway’s people.
EPISODE PHOTO
King Haakon seeks cover in a birch grove during an air raid on Molde in late April 1940.
Photo: Per Bratland
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 NO
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
MORE INFO
andrewjboyle(.)com
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Manglende episoder?
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Today’s podcast is about the greatest drama of modern Norwegian history. What Norwegians call ‘Aprildagene’ – the fateful days of the 9th, 10th and 11th of April 1940. The greatest drama? How else to describe three days that start with King Haakon in his bed in the palace in central Oslo, and finish with the king and government hunted by the Nazis from town to village to farm. Three days that finish with them stumbling through snow as German planes strife and bomb the ground around them in an assassination attempt. How else describe three days that see a coup d’etat by a politician whose party – at the most recent general election – gained a meagre 1,8 percent of the popular vote. Today, Act 1 of the drama: the 9th of April. The climax of the 10th and 11th comes in the next podcast.
EPISODE PHOTO
King Haakon VII of Norway in 1930
Photographer: Ernest Rude
Public Domain
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
MORE INFO
andrewjboyle(.)com
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‘I walked one evening along a road – on one side lay the town, and the fjord lay below me…’ In this way begins Edvard Munch’s account of how he came to paint The Scream. Besides the Mona Lisa, it is probably the most recognisable image ever created. Munch painted in order to ‘explain my life to myself’. And for the same reason, he wrote constantly in notebooks about his anxieties, his unhappy love life, his disappointments and his creative ideas. His writings are often witty and – from the man who gave modern anxiety its visual language – full of searing insights into the challenges of life and society. For today’s podcast, I have rummaged around in these sources to let Norway’s great artist speak for himself. ‘I know I have to return to the road by the edge of the cliff – that is my road.’
EPISODE PHOTO
Edvard Munch: Self-Portrait (1905)
Public Domain
Owner: Nasjonalmuseet for kunst, arkitektur og design
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
MORE INFO
andrewjboyle(.)com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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On the 28th of July this year, it will be exactly 100 years since an extraordinary event took place in the tiny mountain village of Lesjaskog. In the cultural history of modern Norway – well, there’s nothing quite like it. On a simple, blue kitchen chair, one of Europe’s greatest artists was carried to the top of a nearby mountain. A round trip of nearly 8 hours. After 20 summers in Norway, it would be his last view of the mountains for the ailing composer. It was a huge feat of endurance – and of love – by those closest to him to get him to the top and down again. Today, I tell the story of how that Englishman came to love the Norwegian mountain landscape, and how he let if fill his music. For his friends, it was important to let him see the mountains one last time, before his eyesight failed.
EPISODE PHOTO
This simple blue chair made possible an extraordinary event.
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
webpage: andrewjboyle(.)com
THANKS
to Sonja Nyegaard for her vocal contribution
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Learning to go downhill – wow, that was an uphill struggle! Getting into skiing as an adult is all about making a right arse of yourself. But during my first long winter in Norway, I managed to reconnect with a sense of innocent wonder at the world I hadn’t known for years. I would go busking in downtown Oslo in the morning, then back up to the light and the forest. But there were also those three Dark Arts of the Forest that defeated me – a trainee in the tracks! And just think – how you pronounced a single word could be hazardous to your health! Finally, there are a few sobering thoughts about the seemingly fatal damage to skiing as a pastime and sport caused by the effects of climate change. This is the second part about my first winter in Norway. Part One was last week.
EPISODE PHOTO
Felt I looked quite smart, even with clothes and skis bought at a flea market!
Ok, just kidding, this is Roald Amundsen in 1909.
Photo: Anders Beer Wilse
Public Domain
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
MORE INFO
webpage: andrewjboyle(.)com
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At last! For a couple of weeks, Southern Norway has been buried in enough snow to gladden the heart of every Norwegian (and Scot) who loves to ski off into the forest – enough snow to dull the pain of past winters with very little of the fluffy stuff. The exotic character of winter in Norway is one of the main reasons I never left the country. But the recent snowfall has brought to mind groan-out-loud memories of how I, as a full-grown Scottish man who had thrived in the inner city grime of Scotland and England, first caught the bug. The itchy fever that compels you to strap planks onto your feet, turn towards the snow-heavy trees, and abandon all things that bind you to the civilised, urban world. My musings on winter wonders are in two parts, this is Part One, and the second comes next week.
EPISODE PHOTO
An action photo of me pushing on for the gold medal!
Ok, only kidding. This is a young enthusiast taking part in the Norwegian Championship in Cross-Country Skiing (Juniors) at Eidsvoll in 1963.
Photo: Johan Brun (Dagbladet)
digitalmuseum(.)no
Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
MORE INFO:
andrewjboyle(.)com
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It is well known that the great French artists of La Belle Époque were hugely inspired by the art of Japan and the East. But what is rarely mentioned today is the period of a few years in the 1890s when Scandinavian art, Norwegian in particular, was suddenly and powerfully all the rage in Paris. And not only painting, but also literature, drama and – perhaps most of all – music. For two years in particular, 1895 and 1896, the sunburst of orientalism was clouded over by art from a very different part of the world – by the cool landscapes of the north. Le Figaro raged that: “The Norwegians tyrannise us!” Actress Sarah Bernhardt scornfully called it: la Norderie. But, as one critic writes: “the day of the divine Sarah with her melodramas and poisoned daggers was giving way to Norway-fever.”
EPISODE PHOTO
Edvard Munch: Rue Lafayette (1891)
Public Domain
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
webpage: andrewjboyle(.)com
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In this episode I take a look at midwinter superstitions that carry us from the ancient sagas to the video game Assassin’s Creed! It is the pit of winter. These are the dark days between Christmas and Epiphany that are only slightly illuminated by the fireworks of New Year. Throughout history, this period has been seen as rather insecure. If one believes in that invisible membrane between this world and the underworld, then at no time of the year is it so thin than at midwinter. The magical, immortal creatures of superstition can almost punch through and touch us, and the layer between living and dead is a mere tissue of existence. Have you observed the customs hallowed by time? If not, then beware! Tonight the hunt may ride again and carry you away. The wild hunt of Odin – the Oskoreia.
EPISODE PHOTO
Åsgårdsreien (detail), by Peter Nicolai Arbo (1872).
Public domain.
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
webpage: andrewjboyle(.)com
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For 10 years I was the choirmaster of my local choir, Vestbygda Blandakor. And as such, I had the pleasurable duty of preparing the annual Advent Concert. I had to ensure that when the lights in Onsøy Church were turned down and the audience relaxed in their pews, lit only by the hundred flickering flames of the candelabra, then they would snuggle closer together, feel the warmth of community again. And most of all, the emotional pull of Christmas music. I love those Advent and Christmas songs that are intended to resound in a building devoted to the continuity of generations. Those old songs put you in contact with humans as they have been at midwinter: struggling with daunting temperatures, with the need for fuel and sustenance – but coping thanks to the bonds of community and family.
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
webpage: andrewjboyle(.)com
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The troll is ancient. A fearsome 3-headed troll is mentioned in one of the earliest poetic texts, the Edda, from about 1220. And Norse mythology is full of jötnar: supernatural troll-like beings. There are several thousand place names in Norway that start with the word Troll, most because of some ancient legend or folk tale that may now be lost. Over 300 valleys are called Trolldal. Rockfalls and groups of huge boulders that no human could have moved – people suspected these inexplicable formations in the mountains to be the work of superhuman arms. Even today, whenever we tremble on a dark path, when something stirs in the gloom of the forest, whenever our insecurity sets our primal instincts at odds with our over-hyped ration – the troll will be just behind us, just out of sight.
EPISODE PHOTO
The Forest Troll, by Theodor Kittelsen (1906).
Public domain.
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
webpage: andrewboyle(.)com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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My podcast today is about the huge secret city Adolf Hitler and his master architect Albert Speer planned to build on the Trondheim Fjord. A secret city?! Well, obviously it wasn’t a secret for the inner circle of Nazis around Hitler. But the plans to build New Trondheim were kept a closely guarded secret from Norwegians – from the people in whose land it was planned to become the largest conurbation. And why did the Nazis keep plans for the new city on the Trondheim Fjord secret from Norwegians? Well, they weren’t going to be allowed anywhere near it! Only Germans would be invited to relocate to the new fabulous cultural capital in the north – they were to become the New Vikings! Hitler planned for an opera house and a huge gallery – and wished to become the patron of New Trondheim.
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
EPISODE PHOTO
On an island in the Oslo Fjord, huge blocks of granite still lie where they lay after the war. They have been expertly sculpted – ready to be shipped to Berlin for Hitler’s Victory Monument, and north to the fabulous secret city, New Trondheim.
Photo: Andrew J. Boyle
WEBSITE
andrewjboyle(.)com
THANKS TO
Solveig Boyle for her vocal contributions.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Want to get inspired? Get your faith back in humanity? In podcast number 10 you can hear short sketches of 10 Norwegians whose stories I find inspiring. They are a real mixed bunch – but are all trailblazers! There’s courage, vision and optimism on show here. The five women are Eva Joly (fighter against corruption), Harriet Backer (painter), Katti Anker Møller (activist for women’s rights), Anne-Sofie Østvedt (Resistance leader during the Second World War) and May-Britt Moser (neuroscientist, winner of Nobel Prize). And the five men are Isak Saba (Sámi activist), Jan Egeland (humanitarian official), Vilhelm Bjerknes (weather scientist), Jan Garbarek (musician) and Edvard Moser (neuroscientist, Nobel Prize winner). You can see portraits of each of them on my website (see below).
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
EPISODE PHOTO
Katti Anker Møller was an indomitable campaigner for women’s rights in the early 1900s
Photographer: Siri Iversen. Free licence.
THANKS
to actor Solveig M. Boyle for her vocal contributions
MORE INFO
andrewjboyle(.)com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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My passport is for a country called Norge. Or Noreg. Or Norga. All three names are used, right there on the front cover. This week’s podcast is about an aspect of Norway’s cultural landscape that I find the most intriguing of all: the Norwegian language(s). Intriguing, because for the last few centuries the Norwegian language has been struggling with a split personality. Not even the name of the country is spared this cultural schizophrenia! Perhaps Norwegians call their country NorGE, perhaps they call it NorEG! It all depends on who you ask! Did you know that the Norwegian national anthem was not written in Norwegian? And that Edvard Munch never wrote a single letter in Norwegian? We will also find out how Norwegians voted in the competition for the TEN MOST TYPICALLY NORWEGIAN THINGS …
EPISODE PHOTO
A banknote issued by Norges Bank. Or perhaps Noregs Bank. And my passport is for a country called Norge. Or Noreg. Or Norga.
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
THANKS
to actor Solveig M. Boyle for her vocal contributions
MORE INFO
andrewjboyle(.)com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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For two decades there was a genuine, if cautious, thaw in Norway’s relations with Russia. All this shuddered to a halt, of course, with the invasion of Ukraine. Norway’s most alarming wake-up call came on September 26 this year. The explosions at the Nord Stream pipelines finally changed everything. Norway seemed like a sleepwalker that had careered straight into a concrete wall. After that sabotage, the Home Guard was posted to energy installations, and Coast Guard vessels have been patrolling along North Sea pipelines. A Russian deep-cover spy was arrested in Tromsø, and the police asked the public to report any strange drone activity. It was a move they came to regret: there was a good number of Norwegians who could’t distinguish between a drone and a passenger jet, or the planet Jupiter.
EPISODE PHOTO
Border markers in the far north of Norway, Norway’s post in yellow, Russia’s post on the far side of the river.
Photo: Clemensfranz. Licence: CC BY 3.0
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
MORE INFO
andrewjboyle(.)com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Mystery and magic are at the core of the podcast this week. We return to the Oseberg Viking Ship, Norway’s most magnificent historical treasure. But there are also many questions connected with it, including these three: Which great Viking leader was honoured with this most magnificent of ship burials? Why was this ship of death anchored to a huge boulder? Why was there a long wooden wand on board, identical to wands that were used in the Viking Age for sorcery? In this podcast, I travel back to the Oseberg burial mound, and we also hear the results of the latest scientific DNA analysis of the two skeletons found on board the buried ship. The burial took many months, a gathering of the elite-of-the-elite in the early Viking world. But was the burial motivated more by FEAR of the deceased than respect?
CONTACT
Twitter: (a)northbynorway
Email: northbynorway(a)gmail(.)com
EPISODE PHOTO
The prow of the Oseberg Ship with its enormous anchor stone. From the excavation of the Oseberg burial mound, 1904.
Photographer : Olaf Væring. Owner: Universitetsmuseenes fotoportal. (Licence:CC BY-SA 4.0)
THANKS
to actor Solveig M. Boyle for her vocal contributions
MORE INFO
andrewjboyle(.)com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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90% of all electricity in Norway comes from rain and snow. That makes Norway Europe's biggest producer of hydropower, and number six in the world. Norway also has half of Europe’s reservoir storage capacity. All of which is important for people far beyond the country’s borders. For many years, Norway has had more energy than it could use, and policy has been to sell the surplus to its neighbours. When the system works as it was designed – it’s BEAUTIFUL! And why shouldn’t it work properly – after all, it all depends on just one simple, natural mechanism: that it keeps on RAINING! However – Norway has just had its driest 12 months in 26 years. Is Norway about to shut down its energy sharing? Just when Europe needs help to keep the lights and heating on during the toughest winter in decades?
EPISODE PHOTO
Sarp Waterfall during the spring melt, 2014, Sarpsborg
Photo: Thomas M. Hansen. Commons licence: CC BY-SA 3.0
THANKS
to actor Solveig M. Boyle for vocal contribution
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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NATO’s Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, has been on our screens throughout the Ukraine crisis, ashen-faced and compelling, but never sabre-rattling. This week’s podcast looks at the place of the Stoltenberg family in Norway and on the international stage. But first we have to consider Norway’s recent history as a peace broker. The country has often worked in the shadows, trying to create ‘a framework and an atmosphere conducive to negotiation’ – as one veteran put it, from 1993 and the Oslo Accords right up to this year’s low-key Libyan talks on Utøya. Yes, Utøya, the site of the terrible massacre, during which Jens Stoltenberg was Prime Minister. His father, Thorvald, was the leading diplomat of his generation, and his sister Camilla was Norway’s ‘Anthony Fauci’ during the Covid pandemic.
CONTACT : Twitter – @northbynorwayE-mail at [email protected].EPISODE PHOTO
Jens Stoltenberg speaks at a service commemorating the one year anniversary of the 2011 attacks.
Fornyingsdepartementet, 22 juli 2012, CC BY 2.0
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36080239
THANKS
to actor Solveig M. Boyle for vocal contribution
LINKS & SOURCES
Speeches by Jens Stoltenberg retrieved from:
https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumentarkiv/stoltenberg-ii/smk/taler-og-artikler/2011/statsminister-jens-stoltenbergs-tale-pa-/id651840
https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/foreign-affairs/peace-and-reconciliation-efforts/innsiktsmappe/norway-peace-work/id446704/
https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/foreign-affairs/peace-and-reconciliation-efforts/innsiktsmappe/peace_efforts/id732943/
https://www.f-b.no/nyheter/krig/sor-amerika/petter-skauen-fra-fredrikstad-sentral-bakmann-bak-fredsavtalen-i-colombia/s/5-59-530284
https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/petter-skauen-70-ar-1.11929162
https://www.dagsavisen.no/kultur/2014/09/01/hyllest-til-en-levende-helt/
https://forskning.no/historie-krig-og-fred-norges-forskningsrad/slik-ble-norge-en-fredsnasjon/190736
MUSIC
00:00North by Norway
Andrew J. Boyle, using the Norwegian folksong ‘I Ola-dalom, i Ola-tjønn’
00:53Stand Together
Andrew J. Boyle
03:20I Ola-dalom, i Ola-tjønn
Edvard Grieg, op. 66, no. 14
15:33Sonata
Edvard Grieg, Op. 7, second movement
All music performed on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Edvard Grieg’s life and music – in his own words. ‘The Idea of Norway. It’s the one thing that keeps me going strong, whether I’m travelling abroad or at home: The Idea of Norway.’ In this week’s podcast, Edvard Grieg – in his own words – tells of his life, his works, and of his love of Norway. He was a great letter-writer, filling his correspondence with all the hopes and desires he had for his emerging nation – with all the heartbreak of child loss, with the pains of self-doubt that afflict every artist – and with the boyish sense of humour that made him a beloved ambassador for his country.
CONTACT
Twitter: @northbynorway
Mail: [email protected]
EPISODE PHOTO
Edvard Grieg, 1906
Photographer: Anders Beer Wilse. Owner: Norsk folkemuseum. (Licence: CC pdm)
THANKS
to actor Solveig M. Boyle for vocal contribution
MUSIC
00:00North by Norway
Andrew J. Boyle, using the Norwegian folksong ‘I Ola-dalom, i Ola-tjønn’
01:51I Ola-dalom, i Ola-tjønn
Edvard Grieg, op. 66, no. 14
04:40Våren (Last Spring)
Edvard Grieg, op. 34, no. 2
05:18Norwegian Dance
Edward Grieg, op. 35, no. 2
08:00Halling
Edward Grieg, op. 17, no. 7
09:50Sonata
Edvard Grieg, Op. 7, second movement
18:15Nocturne
Edvard Grieg, op. 54, no. 4
21:00Susanna’s horn call
Contained in a letter from Edvard Grieg to Niels Ravnkilde, 17 October 1887
All music performed on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle
LINKS & SOURCES
Edvard Grieg: mennesket og kunstneren
Finn Benestad/Dag Schjelderup-Ebbe
Aschehoug 1990
Brev til Frants Beyer 1872–1907
Finn Benestad/Bjarne Kortsen
Universitetsforlaget, 1993
Brev i utvalg : 1862-1907. B. 1 : Til norske mottagere
Finn Benestad
Aschehoug, 1998
Brev i utvalg : 1862-1907. Bind II
Finn Benestad
Aschehoug, 1998
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A sculptor – who rose to the highest art position in Norway. A composer – who was regarded as the equal of Puccini and Strauss. An author – who was awarded the Nobel Prize.
Three artists with one thing in common. They all chose the wrong side during the Second World War.
This week’s podcast is about cancel culture – as practiced after the war by Norwegian society. These three artists were treated very differently. One of them was imprisoned – but his works left in place. One of them was safe and sound at the heart of the Norwegian canon. And the third vanished as if he had never existed.
The sculptor is Wilhelm Rasmussen
The composer is Christian Sinding
The author is Knut Hamsun
CONTACT
Twitter: @northbynorway
Mail: [email protected]
EPISODE PHOTO
In 1926, a full-scale cardboard model of the Saga Column was erected in front of Stortinget, the Norwegian parliament building, to test public opinion. When the stone column was finally erected outside the Elveseter Hotel, the lion at its crown was replaced by one of King Harald Fairhair.
Photographer: Edmund Neupert. Owned by Oslo byarkiv. (Licence: CC BY-SA)
MUSIC
00:00North by Norway
written on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle, using the Norwegian folksong ‘I Ola-dalom, i Ola-tjønn’
03:10Sagasøyla
written on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle
07:45Nocturne
Edvard Grieg, op. 54, no. 4
performed on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle
14:50Rustle of Spring
Christian Sinding
performed on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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