Lost and Found - Svabonio - Jens Christian Svabo Music from 18th-century Tórshavn. Played by Svabonio from the music book by Faroese polymorph Jens Christian Svabo (1746-1824) Credits Arrangements: Daniel Rye Recording and Editing:: Paul Arden-Taylor Artwork: Archibald Black Layout and Design: Uni Árting Booklet texts: Ólavur Jakobsen and Daniel Rye Recorded April 2017 at The Steiner Academy, Hereford, U.K. 
Svabonio was formed to play the music from the time of Jens Christian Svabo, starting with a project to give new life to the tunes in Svabo’s notebook. The four musicians – two Faroese and two English - aim to explore the crosscurrents between the classical and popular music of the time, sometimes by entering the sound world of the 18th-century, and at other times giving the music a 21st-century twist. SVABONIO Angelika Nielsen, violin Daniel Rye, clarinet Fiona Parker, horn Ólavur Jakobsen, guitar 
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Release 2017 of album with tunes from the music notebook of Jens Christian Svabo
Svabo’s music notebook, which is dated 1775 on the cover, must have come home to Faroes with him in 1800. Svabo himself beeing a keen violinist. The book contains more than 200 tunes. Mostly minuets, contredances, polonaises and popular tunes of the day. At some point the book was put in a chest in the loft of Nýggjustovu - a house still excisting in the old part of Tórshavn, and did not see the light of day again until it was discovered in 1928.
Svabo's achievements were not particularly recognised during his lifetime, but the work that he left behind laid the foundations for scholarly research in Faroese culture, language, society and history. So our album title, Lost
and Found, can be said to be a description both of Svabo’s life and of his work.
‘At notable weddings and celebrations, especially in Tórshavn, the Faroese dance is very much starting to fall out of fashion, and in its place, minuets, Polish, English, Scottish dances, reels and contradances, are being introduced.’
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