accompanied the 16 year old Gemma Rosefield on a trip to Norway to play the piano for the initial round of the European Music for Youth Competition. On our first evening in a cold and snowy Oslo, we were entertained to a group of local musicians performing music on the hardanger fiddle. They must have been a good omen as Gemma went on to win the competition.

The extraordinary sound of this beautiful instrument has stayed with me ever since and this fantasia for cello is based on a selection of hardanger fiddle music, including the tune Fossegrimen. The Fossegrimen is the supernatural spirit that lives in the waterfall. If you go to the waterfall at midnight at midsummer, and throw in a leg of mutton, the Fossegrimen will appear. It will teach you to play the fiddle, drawing your fingers up and down the strings until they bleed. But if you throw in a bone with no meat on it, the spirit will only teach you to tune the instrument.

Buy Fossegrimmen here:
http://www.davidknotts.co.uk/music/fossegrimmen/

David Knotts - July 2009