Värttinä
Simon Broughton takes hold of the Finnish group Värttinä and talks to them about Karelian influence in their latest release Viena.
Viena, the title of Värttinä's 13th studio album, is a word full of content for Finns, but the word needs a little explanation for others. Vienna is a city; not a misspelling of the capital in Austria, more in the direction of Midgard. While Tolkien's town for setting the story of The Lord of the Rings is fictional, Karelian Vienna is real - on this side of the border with Russia, in the Russian province of Karelia, a town that has become increasingly accessible.
"It's so quiet there," says Mari Kaasinen, one of the founders of Värttinä. "There was something quiet… just birds. Most frightening." Surprisingly, the trip to Viena Karelia in 2014 – the inspiration for their latest album – was her first. "Like searching for your roots," she says.
The most successful folk music group in Finland, Värttinä, was founded by sisters Sari and Mari Kaasinen in 1983. Based in the small town of Rääkkylä in eastern Finland, the group began singing the traditional Karelian repertoire of the region. From the early 1990s, when core members of the group studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, they acquired a sharper tone with a strong female identity. The more contemporary style of music brought them greater international attention. They have toured in Japan and Brazil and worked with AR Rahman on the musical The Lord of the Rings. Over the years, some of the members have changed, but the core has always been three female vocalists in the front, and male members in the band.
The singers in Värttinä must be versatile and whole-hearted. The three voices intertwine and change places. Sometimes they can't even tell what part of the work they are singing.
"There is peace on these beaches"
Where it glows in open water
Towards the horizon; the houses on the beach
"Drawing itself against the endless edge of the sky, by the water."
These are words that Mari Kaasinen sings in "Taivasranta" (Heavenly Beach), the opening of Viena, inspired by a wedding in Haikola, one of the villages on a small island in a lake. " It's a song about nature," she says. "There is simply so much nature there. So much forest, so much sky. But it is also sad that people have to move from the city, because they have no work there. If there is a message, it must be that we should be guardians of this area, which is so close to us, and yet so far away.
Why is Vienna Karelia so important to Finns? In English, the area is known as White Karelia, after Lake Kvitesjøen, into which the rivers flow. It dates back to the nation-building of the 19th century, when Finland rose up against centuries of Swedish and Russian domination. A key role in this was played by Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884), who traveled to Vienna Karelia and recorded the songs and runic poetry that he collected in the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic published in 1849. Most of the poetry that went into the Kalevala was collected in the villages of Vienna Karelia. In Lönnrot's footsteps came artists, folklore scholars, song collectors, and a whole movement of Karelian culture was born.
“ There is peace on these beaches
Where it glows in open water
Towards the horizon; the houses on the beach
Draws itself towards the endless edge of the sky, next to the water. These are words that Mari Kaasinen sings in "Taivasranta" (Heavenly Beach), the opening of Viena, inspired by a vitjing in Haikola, one of the villages on a small island in a lake.
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Karelia is particularly fascinating because the combination of primitive living conditions and poetic traditions that had disappeared in the rest of Finland lived right across the border from Russia. It was like touching the source of Finnish culture. "There are Karelian dialects on both sides of the border. They have never been part of Finland, but they are the same people," says Kaasinen. "It is very natural for me to write lyrics in the Karelian rune song tradition." The meter of the Kalevala is easily recognizable (like Longfellow's Hiawatha) and the poetry is full of alliteration and repetition. Of course, the Kalevala has influenced musicians in Finland for years, from Sibelius to heavy metal bands, and many folk bands like Värttinä.
Mari Kaasinen was born into the Karelian culture in Rääkkylä, and she says that the dialect and poetry are not so different from what you find in Viena Karelia. The culture is shared. "The difference is that in Viena Karelia he is still alive, but he is not in Rääkkylä." It is the same reason that killed Lönnrot nearly 200 years ago. What has also kept the culture intact in these villages is that during the Soviet era this border area was inaccessible not only to foreigners, but also to the citizens of the Soviet Union, unless they had a special permit, and that meant that everything froze in its time. Not until people started coming there in the early 90s did things change.
Värttinä's new singer, Karoliina Kantelinen, who started in the group in 2013, is a specialist in the way of singing they use in the Vienna region. So in the summer of 2014, when Värttinä held a concert in Kuhmo during the Sommelo Festival, they took a ten-day expedition into Viena Karelia. It was the first meeting for Mari Kaasinen and singer Susan Aho. In Russia, they had visited many of the old villages and runic songs, and that had seen its mark on the new record.
"First I learned the songs from Viena Karelia from archive recordings - recordings from 1915," says Kantelinen. "And ten years ago I had the opportunity to travel there. I went to Jyskyjärvi and met the singer Helmi Rekina. For her I sang a joik from northern Karelia, and she told me that my voice was well suited to Karelian joiking (different from Sami joik). When they were there, Rekina gathered eight veteran singers in Uhtua. "They sang for us and we sang for them." But Helmi Rekina died in October, so the thinnest in the ranks of tradition-bearing rune singers.
“ In a way, it is our story together with Viena Karelia. We have learned that we should connect with nature more than we do. And we have found peace here. ”
They also met Raija Zabrotskaya in the village of Vuokkiniemi, and her welcome song, 'Raijan Joiku' (Raija's joik) has now been arranged for three voices, so that they sounded almost Bulgarian with their dense harmonies. In its original form, joikar is only for single voices, and it is rough to listen to.
'You are welcome here.'
My noble sir, my honorable guests
To take part in our happy celebration
To celebrate the day.'
This welcoming song opened the concert in Helsinki, where Värttinä was promoting her album. The women, dressed in vibrant red skirts, were accompanied by violin, accordion and guitar. Viena is evoked through a wedding song, a fun work song about weaving, a shamanic fortune teller who travels with magic, and a series of songs about nature, including birds – particularly Ukonlammas (The Thunder Bleater). "It's a mysterious bird, which you hear when there's a thunderstorm," says Kantelinen. "It makes a strange cry, and we heard it many times."
Viena Karelia is a harsh and unforgiving landscape, with few roads and endless lakes and forests. In summer it is beautiful when the sunset meets the dawn and the light breaks through the trees and reflects in the lake. But there are a lot of mosquitoes. In winter the lake is dark and frozen. Nowadays the villages are almost deserted, although in some places you can see that tourism has slowed down the emigration. Karelianism in the latter half of the 19th century painted a romantic picture of the region. This is also noticeable in Värttinäs Viena, even if they strive to avoid Kalevala nostalgia.
One of the songs that is full of twilight melancholy is 'Ikuikävä' (Lengt), which comes from a meeting with the rune singer Vera Kieleväinen in Vuonninen. This village was one of the richest sources for the collection for Lönnrot. Here there were two bards, Ontrei Malinen and Vaassila Kieleväinen, who performed core material that found its way into the Kalevala, especially about the heroic bard Väinämöinen.
"Vera is over 80 years old and lives alone in the middle of the forest," says Kantelinen. "She is very lonely, waiting by the window for someone to come, but no one comes. She has three sons, but they are busy. She made us notice how lucky we are with everything we have around us and that we take for granted. She has so little, and yet she is generous and has an open mind. It is a bit sad in a way. And in a way, with this constant longing, she is like a symbol for the whole place." The song describes how she waits by the window, her tears and her longing for the next life.
'The morning breaks, gracious beneath the window
I should be at the cemetery, by the water.
With pine branches forever, on a brass bed
Tucked in, with eternal blankets around me.
"In a way, it's our story together with Viena Karelia. We've learned that we should connect with nature more than we do. And we've found peace here."
Translated by Marianne Lystrup
ml@skriveliv.no
