Låtfiol

Form of violin for Swedish folk musicians

Låtfiol is an expression and concept that originates from the 1980s when Swedish folk musicians became more interested in violins with sympathetic strings and were trying to find a Swedish equivalent to the Norwegian hardanger fiddle. The Norwegian violin maker Kåre Leonard Knutsen built a number of instruments for Swedish musicians, some were copies of older instruments with 8 sympathetic strings in Swedish museums, but even more of Knutsen's instruments were provided with two sympathetic strings based on oral sources that such things would have occurred in Sweden in the past. It is in particular violins with two resonant strings that have been called låtfiol by some, but the term is far from widespread. The oral sources for the existence of violins with two sympathetic strings have not been verified, however, more and more double-deckers have appeared, even those with less than 8 sympathetic strings but in those cases either 6 or 4 sympathetic strings. There are written sources about Swedish violins with sympathetic strings but all those instruments have more than two sympathetic strings.

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