An old fiddle maker from Hardanger in Norway once said about the really old Hardanger fiddles: "They are not good because they are old; they are old because they are good." The same goes for playing slåtter (a general term for Norwegian folk melodies, songs and dances) and folk music in general. This music has been refined over time, and the best has survived where there was a living folk music tradition - mostly where traditions were passed down orally from one generation to the next, as is still the case in many places today.
The album "Vetra" features folk music that Ludvig Mathias Lindeman collected and wrote down in Valdres.