Kalevala Suite
Overview
Kalevala and Nature myths
in Finnish Music – Part 1
Vesa Matteo Piludu
Lecture 1 12.9.2011
University of Helsinki
Lotman, Universe of Mind
Symbols: otherness and archaic features
 Symbols are a special kind of sign
 Symbols are always connected to signs of other orders or languages
 The content of symbols are generally highly valued in culture
 A symbol is for example a religious sign used in a non-religious
situation as art: novels or painting
 There is always something archaic in symbols
 Sometimes symbols go back to pre-literate or oral cultures (fairy
tales)
Symbols
 Symbols preserves long
and relevant texts in a
condensed form (image,
icon)
The vertical cut
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A symbol never belongs to one synchronic section of a culture
It always cuts across that section vertically
coming from the past
And passing on into the future
 A symbol’s memory is always more ancient than the memory of its
non symbolic text content
Texts: heterogeneous
 Every texts of a culture is heterogeneous, it form a complex plurality
of voices, coming from different ages and times
 Symbols, as powerful symbols, as condensed elements of cultural
memory, can transfer texts, plots outlines, from one level of
memory to another
 The symbols activated cultural memory
 The symbols prevent the disintegration of culture in isolated layers
(no communication between classicism and romanticism)
Duality of Symbols
 Symbols reveals their duality
 By one hand the symbol is conservative, it has elements of
repeatability and invariance
 The symbol is a seed, it exists before the text, it comes from the
depths of cultural memory
 The symbol is like an emissary from other cultural epochs
 A reminder of the ancient foundation of a specific culture
 To the other side
 A symbol actively correlates with the cultural context of the text,
transform it and is transformed by it
 So there are many variant of the same symbol, that could have
different meaning in different texts of different ages or places
Finland
 In Finland the nature is a relevant artistic symbol
 Nature isn’t ”biological” but cultural and mythological
 Many natural symbols derivates from mythology and in particular the
national epic poem Kalevala
Kalevala and Finnish Arts
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The Finnish Epic Poem Kalevala:
Old Kalevala 1835
New Kalevala1849
by Elias Lönnrot (ethnographer - poet)
 In English on the web:
 http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/index.htm
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The Kalevala
by Elias Lönnrot
Translated by John Martin Crawford
[1888]
Kalevala: based on Finnish Folk Poetry
 No Kalevala in Finnish Folk Culture, but a many differents epics
songs, spells, marriage songs … disconnected to each other
 General context: the village culture
 The message: musical-lyrical performance of a skilled singer
 The code: musical – mnemonic (kalevalaic octosillabic metre):
 Nu-ku nuku nur-mi li----ntu
 Two melodic lines (ab ab ab)
 Modal incipit … incipit sol in g (sol-la-do-re-mi)
 Rhythm: 2/4 or 5/4
 Contest of performance: often ritual (spells or long charms), local
entertainment (narrative or lyric songs), work song, everyday life
Cd: The Kalevala Heritage
 Track 9: Kilpalaulanta
 Singer Iivo Lipitsä
 Registered in Helsinki 1966
 SKSÄ 867:5
 The song challenge:
 A shamanistic magic song challenge between the old tietäjä (seer,
shaman) Väinämöinen and the young Joukahainen
Joseph Alanen
Joukahainen and Väinämöinen
Kalevala and shamanistic heroes
 Kalevala’s heroes are not warriors, but shamans that fight with magical charms, even if
they could use occasionally also swords, spears or ordinary weapons
 Shamans or tietäjä (sages, seers) are magicians able to heal, to transform themselves
into animals, to travel in the otherworld
 Their magical powers depends on the knowledge of magic charms, incantations
 The most powerful tietäjä (the-one-who-knows) of Kalevala is
 Väinämöinen
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But all the relevant heroes of Kalevala has shamanic powers:
The smith Ilmarinen, able to forge the Sky
Lemminkäinen, the Nordic “Don Juan”
La mother of Lemminkäinen, able to summon his son from death
The tragic Kullervo, who will commit suicide
 Also the enemies of the heroes has powerful shamanic powers:
 Louhi, the mistress of the North
 The joung Joukahainen
Carelian Wedding (1921) 1/3 The Proposal
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnoxYC5n4yo&feature=related
 Reenactment of a Carelian Wedding shot on location in Suojäri
(Finland) 1920. Producer: Kalevalaseura a.k.a. The Kalevala Society.
Directed by A. O. Väisänen. Script: U. T. Sirelius. Camera: J. W.
Mattila. Local volonteers play the parts of the different characters.
Kalevalic runo singning today
 Värttinä - Tuulen tunto (best quality)
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erf26tDccio&feature=related
 Värttinä - Äijö
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu-srUiWVsQ&feature=related
 Värttinä - Seelinnikoi
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ozxHOXf8I&feature=related
Kalevala ”manipulated” the signification process
of Finnish Folk Poetry
for a new social and cultural context
 Elias Lönnrot wrote down the songs
 change on the code: from oral to written – from music to literature
 He joined together different themes and chose the principal myth
(Sampo) as a red line: from fragmentation to unity
 Social context: from village culture to ”national culture”
 Message’s context: from oral performance to reading
 Addresser: from Oral poets (anonymous) to a ”Poet” Lönnrot
 Addressee: from other villagers to intellectuals, scholars, teachers,
artists, politics …
 Meaning of the kalevalaic signs: from rituals and village
entertainment to the building of Finnish national identity and
literature
”Sprawl” of Kalevala in Finnish Arts
 From the literary text to:
 Symphonic, opera, Classical Music (Sibelius, Rautavaara)
 Visual Arts: painting (Gallen-Kallela), sculpture, architecture, comics
 Military propaganda in the Winter and Continuation Wars
 Jazz, rock and ”Contemporary folk music” (Värttinä, Gjallarhorn)
 Media and advertizing (Sampo)
 Multimedia art, Modern Dance: Kimmo Pohjonen, Tero Saarinen
 Again we have complete redefinitions of the signification of the
Finnish Folk poetry using different codes and languages
Gallen-Kallela: Mäntykoski (1892)
Sibelius- Finlandia
 Sakari Oramo conducts "Finlandia”
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci3RPAOFok4
 Sibelius:Finlandia
Yle Radion Sinfoniaorkesteri (Finnish radio symphony orchestra)
conducted by Sakari Oramo
October 22, 2005
NHK Hall, Tokyo