Music of Finland

Roots and traditions

Folk music

The two major traditions of folk music in Finland are Kalevala and Nordic folk music or pelimanni (North Germanic spelman, "player of music").

Kalevala is older. Its most important form is runonlaulanta ("poem singing", or chanting), traditionally performed in a trochaic tetrametre using only the first five notes on a scale. Via alliteration, this type of singing tells stories about heroes such as Väinämöinen, Lemminkäinen, and Kullervo. The songs were memorised, not written down, and performed by a soloist, or by a soloist and a chorus in antiphony. The Vantaa Chamber Choir is an example of a choir that sings such poems in modern arrangements. Traditional Finnish instruments include the kantele, which is a chordophone, and was used in the 'Kalevala' by the hero Väinämöinen. More primitive instruments like the jouhikko (a bowed lyre) and the säkkipilli (Finnish bagpipe) had fallen into disuse, but are now finding new popularity in a folk revival. Värttinä is a modern group more focused on Kalevala singing traditions and the kantele.

Popular music

Contemporary art music

The first wave of post-classical music in Finland came about in the 1920s with modernists Aarre Merikanto, Väinö Raitio and Sulho Ranta. However, this movement was tamed by the growing nationalistic tendency in the arts before the Second World War. In the 1940s, Erik Bergman and Joonas Kokkonen gained popularity and added technical innovations to Finnish music. A generation of Finnish composers turned to modernism, such as Einojuhani Rautavaara and Usko Meriläinen, while the neoclassical style found voice in the music of Einar Englund. The 1950s saw an increase in international attention on Finnish music and helped modernize Finnish composing. The forming of the Ears Open! society in 1977 turned out to be the major change in Finnish art music. From its circles emerged composers and musicians who achieved worldwide success, notably conductor-composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, and composers Eero Hämeenniemi, Kaija Saariaho, Magnus Lindberg and Jouni Kaipainen. The early Ears Open!