50 Kronor 1996, Sweden
| in Krause book | Number: 62a |
| Years of issue: | 1996 |
| Edition: | |
| Signatures: | Kjell-Olof Feldt, Urban Bäckström |
| Serie: | 1991, 1996 issue |
| Specimen of: | 1996 |
| Material: | Cotton fiber |
| Size (mm): | 120 х 77 |
| Printer: | Tumba Bruk (Crane and Co.), Tumba, Sweden |
* All pictures marked 
are increased partially by magnifying glass, the remaining open in full size by clicking on the image.
** The word "Specimen" is present only on some of electronic pictures, in accordance with banknote images publication rules of appropriate banks.
Description
Watermark:
Jenny Lind (repeated portraits).
Avers:
The engraving on banknote is made after this lithography of Jenny Lind, dated approx. by 1845.
Johanna Maria Lind (6 October 1820 - 2 November 1887), better known as Jenny Lind, was a Swedish opera singer, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she performed in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and undertook an extraordinarily popular concert tour of America beginning in 1850. She was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music from 1840.
Lind became famous after her performance in Der Freischütz in Sweden in 1838. Within a few years, she had suffered vocal damage, but the singing teacher Manuel García saved her voice. She was in great demand in opera roles throughout Sweden and northern Europe during the 1840s, and was closely associated with Felix Mendelssohn. After two acclaimed seasons in London, she announced her retirement from opera at the age of 29.
In 1850, Lind went to America at the invitation of the showman P. T. Barnum. She gave 93 large-scale concerts for him and then continued to tour under her own management. She earned more than $350,000 from these concerts, donating the proceeds to charities, principally the endowment of free schools in Sweden. With her new husband, Otto Goldschmidt, she returned to Europe in 1852 where she had three children and gave occasional concerts over the next two decades, settling in England in 1855. From 1882, for some years, she was a professor of singing at the Royal College of Music in London. 
Right of the portrait of Jenny Lind is Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz's drawing of the former Stockholm Opera House, which was demolished in 1892. This is where Jenny Lind made her last appearance in Sweden in 1848.
Also, there is Jenny Lind on stage and the roses - plenty of which she got from her fans.
Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz (30 January 1716 – 1 March 1796) was a Swedish architect and civil servant. Adelcrantz's style developed from a rococo influenced by Carl Hårleman, the leading architect in Sweden in the early years of his career, to a classical idiom influenced by the stylistic developments in France in the mid-to-late 18th century. As överintendent, he headed the royal and public building works from 1767 until his retirement in 1795.
Righ of Opera House is a micro-text in Swedish:
"Musik överbringar ett profetiskt budskap, vilket uppenbarar en högre livsform som mänskligheten utvecklar sig i riktning mot. Och det är på grund av detta budskap som musik appellerar till människor av alla raser och nationaliteter".
In English:
"Music conveys a prophetic message revealing a higher form of life towards which mankind evolves. And it is because of this message that music appeals to men of all races and cultures".
Left of the portrait of singer are the notes from Vincenzo Bellini's opera "Norma", in which Jenny Lind also played the main role.
Denominations in numerals are in top left and lower right corners. In words at the top.
Revers:
On top is the part of the sheet music from Sven-David Sandström's work "Pictures for percussion and orchestra".
Sven-David Sandström (born October 30, 1942, Motala) is a Swedish classical composer of operas, oratorios, ballets, and choral works, as well as orchestral works.
Centered is the image of a silverbasharpa (a type of Swedish keyed fiddle) and its tonal range.
The silverbasharpa from the late 1800’s, named for the use of a silver-wrapped gut string for the bass string to get more sound. There have been widespread rumors that in about 1836, a sergeant named Johan Söderstedt and an organ builder named Per Olof Gullbergson built the first silverbasharpa by adjusting the design of the kontrabasharpa. They positioned the second melody string adjacent to the first melody string and added a second row of keys especially for that string. They also decided that the second playing string should be tuned to a C, not a D as before. Similar rumors have attributed this re-design to Wesslén, also near the end of the 1830’s. These ideas have been shown to be false. Both the kontrabasharpa and the silverbasharpa descended from the mixturharpa, in parallel. Most surviving silverbasharpor have fewer notes available than older kontrabasharpor — if you were trying to add ability, why would you take some notes away?
There were different ways of adding ability to the instrument, both the ability to play different intervals (drone vs. chordal intervals) and the ability to play more notes (more keys, or more accidentals). Either way, the second row of keys on the C-string gave the opportunity to play double-stops (triad intervals) instead of just with the drone as before, offering the possibility of a more modern sound. As a result, the dominant kind of polska played in Uppland shifted from 16th-note to 8th-note polskas (e.g. music played for the Bondpolska från Viksta and Bondpolska från Överhärde).
The silverbasharpa’s popularity, although great at first, waned in the face of the increasing availability of accordians around the turn of the century, which were preferred for their sheer volume and because they represented the “new” times. It is not a fully chromatic instrument, but works well in the keys of C, F, G, & D. Many Swedes today play the silverbasharpa as well as modern 3-row nyckelharpa, e.g. Björn Björn. www.nyckelharpa.org.
On background is Swedish landscape visible.
Denominations in numerals are in top corners. In words at the bottom.
Comments:
Banknote paper: Manufactured of cotton fibres that are not fluorescent, which is to say they do not emit any light under ultraviolet light (other types of paper may emit a bluish glow).
You can see from the banknote number which year the note was printed. The first figure is the same as the last figure in the year of printing. The second and third figures show the decade the note was printed, in accordance with a special code.
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