Fram med basfiolen, knäpp och skruva

Fram med basfiolen, knäpp och skruva (Out with the cello, pluck and screw) is Epistle No. 7 in the Swedish poet and performer Carl Michael Bellman's 1790 song collection, Fredman's Epistles. The epistle is subtitled "Som synes vara en elegi, skriven vid Ulla Winblads sang, sent om en afton" ("Which seems to be an elegy, written by Ulla Winblad's bed, late one evening"). It describes an attempt by Jean Fredman to make love to Ulla Winblad, set to a tune from a French operetta, narrated with a combination of biblical allusion and suggestive metaphor. The mention of elegy implies that the song is about death, but the subtext is of the "little death" or female orgasm. Scholars have remarked the epistle's ambiguity, enabling it to work both on a high mythological level and a low worldly level. Similarly, the musician's cello serves both as a musical instrument and as a symbol for Ulla Winblad's body, allowing the singer to mime plucking strings and feeling a woman's body.

Music and verse form
The Epistle was written by 1770, and set to the melody from the ariette "Chere Annette reçois l'hommage" in Justine Favart and Adolphe Blaise's 1762 comic operetta Annette et Lubin. The operetta was brought from Paris the following year, and performed at least 12 times in Stockholm, in French, between 1763 and 1770.

There are five stanzas, each of eight lines. The rhyming scheme is ABAB-CDCD. The Epistle's time signature is Time_signature, with its tempo marked Andante; Bellman's original manuscript however is marked Largo.

Lyrics


The subtitle text, "Som synes vara en elegi, skriven vid Ulla Winblads sang, sent om en afton" ("which seems to be an elegy, written by Ulla Winblad's bed, late one evening"), indicates that the Epistle is at least in part a parody, while also erotic in tone, the "death" spoken of being the "little death" or female orgasm. Fredman's intercourse with Ulla Winblad is accompanied throughout by conversation with Father Berg. Yet another metaphor is hinted at with the cello in the opening lines, and mentions of plucking and screwing, as in Epistle 2 Nå skruva Fiolen: its shape, like a woman's back, denotes sexual intercourse. The scholar of Swedish literature Gunnar Hillbom suggests that the Epistle is describing an episode of impotence; Fredman tries to encourage his performance by fantasising. The Epistle ends with phrases like "Now you will 'die', my nymph", suggesting that Fredman has succeeded at last, but that Ulla has given up waiting and gone to sleep.

Reception and legacy


The Bellman scholar Lars Lönnroth writes that the Epistle works on two levels, one high, mythological, and the other low, worldly, shabby. Using the biblical language, Bellman succeeded in making something other than his previously simple biblical parodies, creating a sacred atmosphere that puts the parody in the background and the actions are raised to a higher level where the audience can empathize with them. The song takes place at what appears to be Ulla Winblad's deathbed, where Fredman asks Father Berg, accompanying him on cello, for his help. Father Berg is thus both an elegiac musician and a member of Fredman's congregation, while Fredman turns out to be both a metaphorical priest and Ulla's lover. Father Berg's cello also has a dual role, as an instrument and symbol for the female body; during the 18th century, they often had a small sculpted female head above the tuning pegs, as Bellman's cittern did. When Bellman imitated the instrument during the performance, he could therefore also pretend to play it with his hands, which could be interpreted as him bringing his hands over Ulla Winblad's body. This ambiguity is reflected in the text, from the first line.



In the first stanza, Lönnroth writes, Jean Fredman tries to comfort Father Berg, but he also seeks comfort himself. Admittedly, Father Berg's playing increases the torment, but Jean Fredman sees the chance to relax with Father Berg's brandy glass. After this Bacchanalian cliché (disguised as elegy) the second stanza assumes the form of the grave number, while the parody reaches greater heights. Ulla's bed becomes both the tomb of the goddess of love and a temple; when beauty throws "her lilies death to prey" it is both an image of the virgin who sacrifices her life, as well as her virginity to the orgasm, "la petite mort". The final line "and my soul is in need" was originally "your soul"; it was probably changed to avoid ecclesiastical criticism: Ulla Winblad's soul would then at the same time be in need of erotic redemption as the extreme unction. In the last two stanzas, both intercourse and ambiguity are completed. The deathbed becomes a wedding bed when Ulla gets her myrtle crown; she then becomes a bride of Christ at the high level, while at the low level she approaches orgasm. Her "song about the fate of virgins" plays on both virgin martyrs and how virgins lose their virginity, but can also be about her exclamation in bed. The last stanza "flesh and blood" as "explain themselves" are taken from the language of Christianity: the first from the marriage form, the latter refers to how souls are liberated from the flesh. This reappears in the last lines, when Jean Fredman wants Ulla to "recover" in the grave as well.

Carina Burman writes in her biography of Bellman that the song is one of the Epistles (along with Nos. 28 and 43) that is sung at students' champagne celebrations in Sweden. The Epistle has been recorded by Cornelis Vreeswijk on his 1971 album Spring mot Ulla, spring! Cornelis sjunger Bellman. It has been translated into German by Klaus-Rüdiger Utschick.