National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

In early July, Nat Geo Music attended the 20th annual celebration of the Førde Folk Music Festival, Norway's largest gathering of folk and world music. Held since 1989 in the cozy town of Førde, the festival has earned a reputation as one of the best of its kind in Europe; routinely punching far above its weight in the international talent that it attracts. Over the years the festival has attracted some 4,500 artists from over 120 countries into its neat little corner of the world, including such world music luminaries as Romania's Taraf de Haïdouks, Guinean singer Mory Kanté, Spanish flamenca Carmen Linares, and legendary Cuban orchestra Sierra Maestra.

This year's festival was no different, with over 300 artists from 23 countries - and it's not hard to see why they come. Førde isn't quite picture-postcard perfect, but it's close enough. A commercial hub nestled deep in western Norway's stunning Sunnfjord region; the town is a cozy, artsy community of some 12,000 souls ensconced in a steep, pine-forested valley. For the last twenty years the town's population has swelled to more than double its size every July, as festivalgoers make the pilgrimage from all over Norway and beyond. Hotels and guesthouses fill up and the quiet streets bustle with colorfully dressed performers from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and elsewhere. And in the center of town, where the small commercial district is bisected by the bracing flow of the Jølstra River, towheaded local kids (pictured) welcome the seasonal newcomers to the town's informal swimming hole. It's just that kind of a place.

When you factor in the Norwegian summer's 20 hours of sunlit days, long, bright evenings, and scant 4 hours of "darkness," it's no surprise that Nat Geo Music jumped at the opportunity to check out the Jubilee edition of the Førde Folk Music Festival for ourselves.

But first, we had to get there. As guests of Norway's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we arrived in the city of Bergen, to join a merry band of international colleagues on a short jaunt through western Norway, intended to introduce us to the regional culture of the fjords and the splendor of the Norse landscape. Our group was a congenial, mixed lot of fellow journalists, presenters and festival organizers from as far afield as Mali, Chile, China, Tanzania, Portugal, Canada, The Netherlands, England, the U.S. and more - and all came away impressed with our trek through the fjords.

Our journey began in the town of Bergen, Norway's second largest city after the capital, Oslo. This bustling Atlantic port town is also a UNESCO World Heritage site, dating back to 1070 CE, and boasts the historic Tyskebryggen neighborhood of quaint, wooden wharf houses that date back to the Renaissance glory days of the old Hanseatic League. In Bergen we began our acclimation to Norway's long, summer days, exploring the historic seaport late into the sunlit evening, and taking the funicular railway up to a vantage point overlooking the town's busy harbor.

The next day we set out in earnest, accompanied by our two guides, Silje Førland Erdal from the Norwegian Agency for Traditional Music, and Aslak Oppebøen with Norway's MIC Music Information Centre. They would provide both warm hospitality and in-depth knowledge of the region's music and folkways. This leg of our trek began with an exhilarating journey on the Flåmsbana Railway, a 20 km-long train ride with views of deep-cut glacial rivers navigating deep ravines, cascading waterfalls, craggy, snow-capped mountains, and tiny family farms. At the dramatic Kjosfossen waterfall we were treated to the staged appearance of a Nøkken - the legendary Norwegian water-sprite that lures men to their doom - accompanied by suitably mysterious new age music piped in from god knows where.

Our railway journey ended in Flåm, situated in the innermost part of the Aurlandsfjord, a tributary of the mighty Sognefjord. This is the heart of Norwegian fjord country; vast waterways hemmed in by vertiginous mountains carved out by glaciers during the last Ice Age. Sognefjord is the largest and deepest fjord in Norway (204 km long and up to 1,308 meters deep) and the second longest in the world. We would traverse its breathtaking expanse by express ferry to the posh resort town of Balestrand.

There we spent the night at the gracious Kvikne's Hotel, an old world, lakefront grand hotel that's charmed moneyed travelers for generations - in fact, one can still sit in the very chair that Kaiser Wilhelm II occupied when the First World War broke out. The hotel's exquisite Swiss chalet-style wooden architecture and elaborate, Viking-revival woodcarvings were the handiwork of one of its former owners, a master woodcarver, and his granddaughter Eli-Grete Høyvik, led the way on a cultural walk along the town's Heritage Trail, taking in including the stave St. Olav's Church, King Bele's statue, and old artists' villas, all favored by kings, artists, and more recently, superstars.

The grand finale of our day's long journey was a banquet dinner at Ciderhuset, a working farm restaurant situated in an orchard that offered up a hundred different varieties of fruit. Ciderhuset brews up its own champagne-style cider in a state of the art cider cellar, and prepares fresh, locally produced organic 'slow-food' that would make Alice Waters smile. After a wonderful dinner served by husband and wife owner/operators Eli-Grete and Åge Eitungjerde, we got our first real taste of Norwegian music, courtesy of experimental jazz musician Karl Seglem on tenor sax and goat horn and master-fiddler Håkon Høgemo, on the Hardanger fiddle, the country's national instrument. The duo foot-tapped away through a repertoire of sprightly, 2-beat and 3-beat melodies including the gentle-tempo "Rudi" couples dance.

After an early morning swim in the fjord waters and a lavish breakfast, off we bussed from Balestrand to Førde up and around the precipitous Gualarfjellet mountain road into Fosseheimen, the "realm of falling waters." We were accompanied by Øystein Wiger, a spry, seasoned 69 year-old mountain guide with the nimble-footed agility of a teenager. Mr. Wiger played traditional recordings of local Hardanger fiddle tunes; demonstrated different bells of mountain farm animals, and provided lively commentary about the local terrain and the districts' differing cultural dialects, fjord farming history, wild flora and fauna, hydroelectric and wind power generation, musical notes, and more?

Our travels with Mr. Wiger included foot hikes across a narrow steel bridge to the "Corpse Waterfall (Lykholefossen) whose gushing, turquoise rapids spoke of its nearby glacial origins; a visit to the tiny Hestad Chapel, - a reconstructed, wooden stave structure dating back to the 11th century; and a memorable lakeside picnic spread. As a young Hardanger fiddler serenaded us, we sampled regional delicacies: smoked salmon and trout, crayfish, goat sausages, goat pate, cured goat, artisanal cheeses, freshly-baked grain breads, cider champagne, barleycorn beer, and more.

Fully stuffed and awed by Sognefjord's natural and cultural treasures, we were primed for the main event - the Førde Folk Music Festival itself.

Read Part Two Of Nat Geo Music's Norse Saga Here