Med Gårdagens Dörr på glänt : Povel Ramel och melodins epok

Sammanfattning: The aim of this dissertation is to examine the style of the Swedish entertainer Povel Ramel (1922-2007) as a composer and lyricist of popular songs, and to elucidate his relation to the older popular music culture, denoted "the age of melody". In the main part of the study the author analyses more than 80 works by Ramel, which he created in the 1950s and 60s. Many of the most characteristic features of the age of melody are outlined as a background to the analysis.The age of melody was the first period of popular music in the Western world - from the music hall to the bossa nova. It ended when rock became dominant over older types of popular song ("schlager"). Its musical roots were in the 19th century European parlour and dance music but gradually it became more and more influenced by American folk music. Along with the development from the pre-industrial world to the modern, urban, industrial world there emerged strong tensions between old familiar national traditions and new foreign temptations and threats. These tensions marked both the intellectual modernism and the popular culture through the whole age.Povel Ramel was in many ways the typical composer of the age of melody. His work encompasses all its predominant styles, genres and features; he catches the humour, the optimism, the distance and the tension between the old and the new, the Swedish and the foreign. And yet he was unique. His uniqueness lies in his attention and awareness of these styles and features, and in his concentrated and varied interpretations of them. He reflected the notional worlds of the age of melody in both poetical and philosophical ways, but most of all - with an unusual sincere playfulness.