Music of Finland

The music of Finland can be roughly divided into folk music, classical and contemporary art music, and contemporary popular music.
The folk music of Finland belongs to a broader musical tradition, common amongst Balto-Finnic people, sung in the so-called Kalevala metre. Though folk songs of the old variety became progressively rarer in western Finland, they remained common in far eastern parts of the country, mainly Savonia and Karelia. After the publication of Kalevala, this music gained popularity again. In the west, mainstream Nordic folk music traditions prevail. The Sami people of northern Finland have their own musical traditions, known as Sami music. Finnish folk music has undergone a roots revival, and has become a part of popular music.
In the field of classical and contemporary art music, Finland has produced exceptional numbers of musicians and composers.
Contemporary popular music includes a heavy metal scene like other Nordic countries, as well as prominent rock and pop bands, jazz musicians, hip hop performers and makers of dance music. A Schlager scene with bandstand dancing shows that the local variety of tango is popular.

Folk music

The two major traditions of folk music in Finland are Kalevala and Nordic folk music or pelimanni.

''Kalevala''

is older. Its most important form is runonlaulanta, 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 and the säkkipilli 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.

Pelimanni

music is the Finnish version of Nordic folk dance music, and it is tonal. It came to Finland from Central Europe via Scandinavia in the 17th century, and in the 19th century, it replaced the Kalevalaic tradition. Pelimanni was generally played on the fiddle and clarinet. Later, the harmonium and accordions were added. Common dances in the Pelimanni traditions include: polka, mazurka, schottische, quadrille, waltz, and minuet.
A form of rhyming sleighride singing called rekilaulu also became popular in the 17th century. Despite opposition from most of the churches in Finland, rekilaulu remained popular and is today a common element in pop songs. Since the 1920s, several popular Finnish performers have used rekilaulu as an integral part of their repertoire. Early pioneers in this field of pop rekilaulu included Arthur Kylander, while Erkki Rankaviita, Kuunkuiskaajat, and Pinnin Pojat sustained the tradition.
Early in the 20th century, the region of Kaustinen became a center of innovation for Pelimanni music. Friiti Ojala and Antti Järvelä were fiddlers of the period. Konsta Jylhä and the other members of Purpuripelimannit became perhaps the most influential group of this period. Well-known Finnish folk music groups of today in the Kaustinen tradition include JPP, Frigg, and Troka. Another important folk musician of today is the accordionist Maria Kalaniemi.
Common instruments today include trumpets, horns, and whistle. Important virtuosos include Leena Joutsenlahti, Teppo Repo and Virpi Forsberg.
In the 20th century, influences from modern music and dances such as jazz and foxtrot led to distinctively Finnish forms of dance music, such as humppa and jenkka.

Sami music

The Sami of northern Finland, Sweden, and Norway are known for highly spiritual songs called joik, reminiscent of a few types of Native American singing. The same word sometimes refers to lavlu or vuelie songs, though this is technically incorrect. Hip hop artist Amoc is noted for rapping in Inari Sami, a Sami language from the area of Inari.

Classical and art music

Classical music

In the 18th century, public concerts were established in Turku and Erik Tulindberg wrote six famous string quartets. After Russia's 1809 annexation of Finland, the cities of Viipuri and Helsinki became cultural centers and opera became popular. The first Finnish opera was written by the German composer Fredrik Pacius in 1852. Pacius also wrote Maamme/Vårt land, Finland's national anthem and founded Akademiska Sångföreningen in year 1838, the oldest still active choir in Finland.
In 1874, the Society for Culture and Education ' was founded to provide opportunities for artistic expression, beginning with the Jyväskylä festival in 1881. The festival, organized on Estonian roots, continues today. In 1883, the Helsinki University Chorus ' was founded as a Finnish-language choir amidst the mostly Swedish-speaking scene. The same year conductor Robert Kajanus founded the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and Martin Wegelius founded what became the Sibelius Academy.
In the 1890s, Finnish nationalism based on the Kalevala spread, and Jean Sibelius became famous for his vocal symphony Kullervo. He received a grant to study poetry singers in Karelia and continued his rise as the first internationally prominent Finnish musician. In 1899 he composed Finlandia, which played an important role in Finnish independence. He remains one of Finland's most popular national figures and national symbol.
Alongside Sibelius, national romanticism sprouted other composers who contributed in the formation of a distinct Finnish style of music. Heino Kaski was a composer of small chamber music pieces; Erkki Melartin's output includes six symphonies; Yrjö Kilpinen composed solo songs, as well as Leevi Madetoja, and Toivo Kuula. In the 1930s composers including Uuno Klami and Yrjö Kilpinen rose to popularity. Kilpinen's approach was somewhat nationalistic, whereas Klami had Karelian influences, leaning towards French models.
Finland had a lively classical music scene. Composers were supported by conductors such as Mikko Franck, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Osmo Vänskä, Susanna Mälkki, Leif Segerstam and Sakari Oramo. Many Finnish singers and instrumentalists achieved international success. Among them are opera singers Martti Talvela, Karita Mattila, Matti Salminen, Soile Isokoski and Topi Lehtipuu, pianists Ralf Gothoni, Olli Mustonen, Risto Lauriala, Janne Mertanen and Paavali Jumppanen, as well as clarinettist Kari Kriikku and violinist Pekka Kuusisto. Practically all prominent Finnish musicians perform both classical and contemporary art music.
The opening of the new Finnish National Opera in 1993 and the new Helsingin Musiikkitalo in 2011 strengthened the position of classical and art music. The orchestra network in Finland might be proportionally the densest in the world, including 30 member orchestras of the Association of Finnish Symphony Orchestras.

Opera

and other opera singers founded the Finnish Opera in 1911. Ackté began a festival in Savonlinna the following year; this was the precursor of the Savonlinna Opera Festival, which launched in the 1960s, shortly before the new Finnish opera became famous in the 1970s. Leevi Madetoja's 1924 Pohjalaisia, an operatic allegory about Russian oppression during previous decades, became popular during the 1920s. At roughly the same time, Aarre Merikanto composed the opera Juha to the libretto by Aino Ackté, who rejected it and asked Leevi Madetoja to compose another version instead; Merikanto's Juha was first performed after the composer's death in 1958, and became regarded as an underrated masterwork.
Aulis Sallinen started a new wave of Finnish opera in the 1970s with The Horseman and The Red Line. The Red Line earned productions in Moscow, London, and New York City. Along with Sallinen's stage works, Joonas Kokkonen's opera The Last Temptations contributed to that era's rise of Finnish opera music. More recent major operas by Finnish composers include among others Kaija Saariaho's L'Amour de loin and Adriana mater as well as Olli Kortekangas's Isän tyttö.
Since the 1960s, the Lahti Symphony Orchestra's reputation as one of the most important Scandinavian orchestras was cemented by conductor Osmo Vänskä; this helped to cause a boom in opera's popularity during the 1980s, rescuing a form increasingly seen as archaic elsewhere. The Savonlinna Opera Festival reopened in 1967.
Martti Talvela, Karita Mattila and Jorma Hynninen became international opera stars, while composers like Kalevi Aho, Olli Kortekangas, Paavo Heininen, Aulis Sallinen, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Atso Almila and Ilkka Kuusisto composed successful operas.

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! society followed Central European modernism along the lines of Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen, but also showed interest in post-war Polish School composers such as Witold Lutoslawski. Ears Open! was followed by the forming of Avanti! Chamber Orchestra in 1983, which offered a platform for composers and instrumentalists to introduce new works and stylistic flows in Finland.
In the 21st century, the modernist movement waned, but is still represented by composers such as Veli-Matti Puumala and Lotta Wennäkoski. Juhani Nuorvala is a rare minimalist, while Osmo Tapio Räihälä and Sebastian Fagerlund lean more towards post-modernism.
Performance of contemporary art music blossomed in Finland, with specialized groups including Uusinta Chamber Ensemble and Zagros. The most important stages for contemporary art music are the established festivals Time of Music in Viitasaari, Musica nova Helsinki and Tampere Biennale, as well as the Klang Concert Series in Helsinki.