Folk Songs is the fourth album by Trio Mediaeval and a clear change of direction. Their three earlier ECM records combined medieval sacred music with contemporary composition. Here the Oslo-based singers turned to their Scandinavian roots: ballads, hymns, lullabies and dances from Norway, arranged for three voices and percussion. In 2009 the album was nominated for a Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance.
The singers are Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth and Torunn Østrem Ossum. On several tracks they are joined by Birger Mistereggen, a specialist in the rare Norwegian folk-drum tradition, on percussion and jew's harp. The album was recorded at the Propstei St. Gerold in Austria in early 2007, with Peter Laenger as engineer and Manfred Eicher as producer. Most arrangements are by Fuglseth and Tone Krohn, often after versions by traditional singers such as Kirsten Bråten Berg, Sondre Bratland and Berit Opheim.
Medieval ballads from Telemark and southern Norway, among them Det lisle bånet, Tjovane and Rolandskvadet, sit beside lullabies, a wedding march from Gudbrandsdalen and old hymns. Gjendines bådnlåt is the lullaby Edvard Grieg wrote down from the singer Kaia Gjendine Slaalien in Jotunheimen. Friman sings Nu vilar hela jorden alone, a song from the Old Swedish Town in Ukraine. The closing Folkefrelsar, til oss kom sets a 12th-century melody from Einsiedeln, revised by Martin Luther in 1524, to words after Ambrose. Lillebjørn Nilsen's Danse, ikke gråte nå is the only song with a named modern author.
In The New York Times, Jim Oestreich wrote that after years of samplings in concert, here was "a full helping, infectious and addictive". Raymond Tuttle in Fanfare found it "alternately ethereal and warmly corporeal" and predicted a wider audience than the trio's earlier discs. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Klaus Kalchschmid noted how hard it is to tell an old folk tune from medieval art music in new clothes. ECM's own notes point out that these are the same sources that have inspired many Nordic jazz improvisers.
CD edition, ECM New Series 2003, first released in October 2007. The booklet includes the song texts with English translations by Andrew Smith.
