Among the Finnish composers are, among others, Oskar Merikanto (1868–1924), Erkki Melartin (1875–1937), Toivo Kuula (1883–1918) and Jean Sibelius. The sopranos Irma Urrila and Helena Juntunen are presented, singing Mozart and Gounoud respectively.

For example: on 6 December, the Finland’s Independence Day, one of the three inserts is a piano piece, entitled Pankakoski, by composer Heino Kaski (who died a day earlier than Sibelius, in September 1957), played by Juhani Lagerspetz (1995). The other two are Andante Festivo (1922), a work originally composed for a string quartet, by Jean Sibelius, played by the Radio Symphony Orchestra (1995) and a song from the 1970s opera Punainen viiva (‘The red line’) by Aulis Sallinen, sung by Matti Salminen (1984).

Fifteen more days to go…

Dolce et espressivo: Violin concerto by Sibelius, 1st movement (1905). Photo: Wikimedia

Helsinki Music Centre: the main hall. Photo: Arno Chapelle

The long-awaited new concert hall, Musiikkitalo (’Music house’, in English Helsinki Music Centre), in front of the Parliament house in the very heart of the city, was opened with a concert (this concert is available at YLE Areena until 30 September) featuring Sibelius and Stravinsky on 31 August.

Musiikkitalo finally provides a new home for two orchestras, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, as well as for the only Finnish university of music, the Sibelius Academy. It is owned by the Finnish government, the City of Helsinki and Finnish Broadcasting Company. The costs of the building rose from an original estimate of 98 million € in 2005 to 190 million €.

The acoustics designer is the renowned Japanese specialist Yasuhisa Toyota. The building, containing seven halls of various sizes, will provide specialised surroundings for different kinds of music and musicians, acoustics in the existing Finlandia Hall (designed by Alvar Aalto) and other local venues long having proved inadequate or faulty.

The site has remained misused for decades: the brick warehouses, dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, were finally abandoned by the national railway company in the 1980s and subsequently occupied by various artists’ and civil organisations, housing popular restaurants and flea markets. Many protests took place when the warehouses were doomed to demolition – and then the buildings were finally destroyed in 2006 in a fire.

The brand new concert hall in Reykjavik, Iceland, is called Harpa (‘Harp’). Wouldn’t it have been nice to give also Musiikkitalo a more exciting name to go by – maybe conduct a straw poll among listeners? Some of the rows of seats (1,704 in all) in the main hall resemble logs floating down in a river, so what about Log jam? Or does that have unfortunate connotations for a project that’s meant to provide Finnish music with a new dynamism?

Jean Sibelius kodissaan. Jean Sibelius, i sitt hem. Jean Sibelius at home

The composer Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) disliked being photographed. This book contains 50 stills selected from the documentary film Jean Sibelius at home, a compilation of cinematographic material in which the composer is seen at home in 1927 and 1945. Some of the shots were originally cut, and have not been previously published. The film was made by the brothers Heikki Aho and Björn Soldan, who were neighbours of Sibelius in their childhood – their father was the author Juhani Aho, a friend of the Sibelius family. Founded in the 1920s, the film company Aho & Soldan was influenced by the experimental spirit of the Bauhaus and became known for its commissioned work aimed at spreading the image of Finland abroad. The Sibelius film offers a rare peek into the composer’s home life at his villa of Ainola. In addition to the photographs, the trilingual book also contains seven articles on Sibelius and the film. Heikki Aho’s daughter, the pioneer photographer Claire Aho relates her own memories of the 1945 filming. Jussi Brofeldt, the book’s editor, is her son.
Translated by David McDuff

Suurten tunteiden talo. Kohtauksia Kansallisoopperan vuosisadalta

2011 marks the one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Finnish National Opera. This richly illustrated and entertaining book describes events that have been absent from previous ‘official’ historical accounts. Readers will encounter over a hundred opera denizens who have made audiences – and, according to many anecdotes, each other – laugh and cry. The initial stages of the opera and ballet were modest in scope when viewed from outside, but the trailblazers involved were tremendous talents and personalities. The brighest star was the singer Aino Ackté, who enjoyed an international reputation. Gossip about intrigues and artistic differences at the opera house over the decades is confirmed in candid interviews with performers. The content of the book is based on archival sources, letters, memoirs, interviews and stories told inside the opera house. Juhani Koivisto, the Opera’s chief dramaturge, clearly has an excellent inside knowledge of his subject. Translated by Ruth Urbom

Suomalaiset kapellimestarit. Sibeliuksesta Saloseen, Kajanuksesta Franckiin

This work, by music critic Vesa Sirén – awarded the Finlandia Prize for non-fiction in 2010 – attempts to explain what makes a good orchestra conductor. Including hundreds of interviews, the book takes a chronological approach, presenting portraits of sixty conductors from the 1880s up to current students of conducting. There are also contributions from music critics, as well as even tougher assessments from musicians, contemporaries of the conductors. The high standard of Finnish music education, which has been easily accessible to young people – at least until the recent times –, provides part of the answer, as does the conducting course at the Sibelius Academy under the long-serving leadership of Jorma Panula. Sirén’s archival research has unearthed some forgotten treasures, including the lost archives of Robert Kajanus and conductor’s notes in Jean Sibelius’ own handwriting.
Translated by Ruth Urbom

Clarinettist who travelled: Bernhard Crusell

Bernhard Crusell: Keski-Euroopan matkapäiväkirjat 1803–1822
[Bernhard Crusell: Travel Diaries from Central Europe, 1803–1822]
Suom. ja toim. [Translated into Finnish and edited by] Janne Koskinen
Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura [Finnish Literature Society], 271 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-222-090-5
€28, hardback

Born the son of a poor bookbinder on the west coast of Finland, Bernhard Crusell (1775–1838) had talents as a clarinettist and composer that brought him considerable fame, both in his native country and further afield. Hannu Marttila reads the diaries he wrote on his travels in Europe, where his meetings with the great and the good chart the emergence of the new Romantic sensibility

‘Felix is a most beautiful child, and he is also said to be very unassuming. In his compositions one immediately recognises the signs of genius and good training. He continues to study under Zelter, and, thanks to an anticipated large inheritance, he, too, may become an independent composer. People here think he may even become another Mozart.’

On the morning of 30 June 1822 Bernhard Crusell was invited to a home concert at the house of banker Abraham Mendelssohn. That summer the Berlin music scene offered its best; performing at the concert were the banker’s 13-year-old son Felix and his older sister Fanny.

Born with a silver spoon: Felix Mendelssohn

In his travel diary Crusell, a Finnish-born clarinet virtuoso and composer, relates that Felix had already composed operas, more than 60 fugues, seven symphonies – the newest, a symphony in D minor currently under rehearsal – as well as piano pieces.

Two days earlier Crusell had heard the new opera hit, Der Freischütz (‘The freeshooter’), in the new Schauspielhaus. ‘Carl Maria von Weber’s music, an awful work, especially the second act in which the music is original but somehow rhapsodic – the second act is dreadful, shouting in place of music.’ The heat and the nerve-wracking music stole sleep from Crusell, who was fighting sickness at the time. But when the two composers met alone together in Dresden in early July, their respect was mutual, and their discussion of stage music was valuable to Crusell, who was planning his own opera, The Little Slave Girl.

The travel diaries of Bernhard Henrik Crusell (1775–1838), Finland’s first composer of international renown, have only now appeared in Finnish. The Finnish translation is based on the Swedish-language diaries edited by Fabian Dahlström in 1977. These were published by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, to which Crusell was awarded membership when he was only 26 years old. He does belong incontrovertibly to both Finnish and Swedish music history and its living tradition. Crusell’s three clarinet concertos and three clarinet quartets belong to the core clarinet repertoire today, just as they did during the composer’s lifetime.

Travel writing:: the beginning of Crusell's 1822 diary.

Particularly during his two trips to Germany, in 1811 and 1822, Crusell formed relationships with important publishers and future performers of his works. His observations of Prussia in 1811, subjugated as it was by Napoleon, were sad: the country was impoverished and humbled, and Crusell’s old clarinettist friend, to whom he had entrusted money to order a new instrument, had needed to use the money to survive.

Eleven years later, however, the culture, towns and countryside flourished anew, and the literary-minded Crusell describes them in the Romantic spirit. But now his own health is faltering, and instead of hearing about the wonders of the spa towns, we read more and more about episodes of ill health which the mineral waters appear only to aggravate.

Space for music in Berlin: the Konzerthaus (built 1818–1821) and the two churches of the Gendarmenmarkt, Französischer Dom and Deutscher Dom (Meyers Konversations-Lexikon 5, 1893–1901).

Although Crusell does not generally mention his own success in his diaries, the names of his travel companions and those he visited nevertheless make clear what sort of reputation he enjoyed as composer and virtuoso of his instrument.

Crusell’s beginnings did not portend high society circles or royal patronage. His father was a bookbinder of meagre means in Uusikaupunki (Nystad) on the west coast of Finland, who later moved to Nurmijärvi, near Helsinki: there Bernhard learned to play the clarinet from a neighbour who was a regimental musician. At the age of 12 Crusell was sent to the Sveaborg military band. Sveaborg [Suomenlinna], an island fortress off the Helsinki coast, was a true cultural centre, and there the unschooled country boy received a good general education from soirees, concerts and conversations. Bernhard taught himself French and, a few years later in Stockholm, German and Italian. His travel diaries bear witness to his ease and expressiveness in French and German. Crusell later translated opera librettos from Italian.

In the eighteenth century it began to be easier for musicians and artists to surmount class barriers than for other people. There were of course those who, like the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg, kicked their Mozart out of the servants’ door when crossed, but there were also those who presaged the coming Romantic period, nobles who respected musicians as friends. Only rarely does Crusell remark after some visit that the mood was ‘icy’. The reader is left to wonder whether the reason for the chill was class pride.

Some aspects of hierarchy did remain: when the court musician Crusell, on his Paris trip in 1803, wished to stay there for another year, Sweden’s King Gustav IV ordered him to return, cloaking the command in respectful phrasing: ‘It is important to get you home to Stockholm for the winter.’

The composer's instrument: Crusell gave this clarinet, by Heinrich Grenser, to Lieutenant von Heland in the 1820s. It now is in the Music Museum of Stockholm.

And while Crusell’s noble travel companions continued their visits, expeditions and purchases, their musician friend withdrew to his quarters and turned to his role of craftsman: ‘afternoon practices’, ‘preparing reed mouthpieces’. Perhaps it was on just such an afternoon that ‘an invitation to Madame Récamier’s arrived, but I declined’. Juliette Récamier’s salon was at that time the most important in Parisian cultural circles. Several days later Mme Récamier came to hear Crusell play Mozart’s trio, ‘which went poorly due to the violist’s non-stop blunders’.

During Napoleon’s time as First Consul in Paris, Crusell visited the sights in this world city and made short, often pithy notes in two notebooks – occasionally even in Finnish, when it was a question of confidential conversations about a potential post or staying in Paris. He attended a court session and saw the guillotine, Bonaparte drilling his troops, as well as an elephant – ‘the most astonishing of all the animals’. He hears unusual music on the Champs Elysées: ‘a Negro is blowing into a galoubet while beating a drum’.

In Paris Crusell reinforces his composition studies. He finds the new music instruction both significant and interesting: the Paris Conservatory and its annual student competitions.

Perhaps most surprising in Crusell’s travel diaries is his fascination with two Paris educational institutions, the schools for the blind and the deaf, and their revolutionary teaching methods: the blind ‘see’ to read, and the deaf communicate among themselves by signing.

The results would surely have amazed anyone, yet one cannot but wonder whether Crusell’s genuine excitement resulted in part from his own journey from a poor country boy to a self-educated celebrity and man of the world for whom ‘enlightenment’ was not an empty term.

Translated by Jill G. Timbers

Crusell’s native town Uusikaupunki organises an annual music festival dedicated to woodwind instruments. Here, more information on the composer.

A little night music: Teemu Kupiainen playing in Baddi, India, as the sun sets. Photo: Stefan Bremer (2009)

It was viola player Teemu Kupiainen‘s desire to play Bach on the streets that took him to Dharamsala, Paris, Chengdu, Tetouan and Lourdes. Bach makes him feel he is in the right place at the right time – and playing Bach can be appreciated equally by educated westerners, goatherds, monkeys and street children, he claims. In these extracts from his book Viulun-soittaja kadulla (‘Fiddler on the route’, Teos, 2010; photographs by Stefan Bremer) he describes his trip to northern India in 2004.

In 2002 I was awarded a state artist’s grant lasting two years. My plan was to perform Bach’s music on the streets in a variety of different cultural settings. My grant awoke amusement in musical circles around the world: ‘So, you really do have the Ministry of Silly Walks in Finland?’ a lot of people asked me, in reference to Monty Python.

In 2002 the first trip during my grant period took me to France, Spain and Portugal, where I performed in small villages in the mountains. When, on the outskirts of a small French village, I plucked up the courage to perform all of Bach’s violin sonatas and partitas from memory for the first time, my one and only listener was clearly enthralled. This I deduced from the way in which it kept jangling the bell tied around its neck throughout the duration of my two-hour performance. As soon as I began to play, this lonely cow came up to me and did not walk off at any point. I thought of this as a good omen.

In autumn 2003 I travelled to China, and from there I continued to India, then Morocco. Finally, I made a less adventurous trip to Lourdes in France. Of course, there were plenty of shorter trips in between these, but on those trips I didn’t keep a diary.

For me, playing on the streets is not about background music; these are concerts – in fact, they are almost more than concerts. I often play for a single listener or just a handful of listeners at a time. As an experience, this is far more intimate than a normal concert, more challenging, and with that comes a greater sense of responsibility. Often, particularly at the beginning of my trips, I can be very nervous as I step out into the street, and sometimes, as the first people stop to listen, I have had some sort of blackout and been unable to remember how the music continues. Such a thing hasn’t happened to me in a concert hall for years. For this reason, I practice a lot on these trips, at least as much as I would when preparing for a ‘normal’ concert.

In addition to playing on the streets, these trips involved another one of my passions: Johann Sebastian Bach and his suites for violoncello and his sonatas and partitas for violin. All of these works can be played on the viola. Only a viola player can set himself the challenge of playing every one of Bach’s suites, sonatas and partitas from memory in a single concert. Only a megalomaniacal viola player, that is….

January 19, 2004, Shimla, India

No matter how badly you sleep in a dingy, mouldy hotel room, waking up as the sun rises and seeing the summit of the Himalayas from your window more than compensates. Three hours’ morning practice on the violin sonatas. Yoga. Then out on to the street.

The centre of the old town is built on a steep ridge. On top of The Ridge there is a street, at the end of which is a market square with a church at one side. Bach and a church! I set up nearby. I feel nervous – not about my own ability, but because of the potential indifference.

An hour’s set turns into a two-hour set. Throughout there are a couple of dozen people standing around, listening intently. Between every movement someone always wants to chat. ‘Where are you from? What is your good name, Sir?’

I have to start playing the movements very attacca, without a break. Four reporters turn up, each with their own photographers. One national newspaper and three local ones, who all claim to be the largest in the region.

And the questions! ‘Shimla is the gateway to God. How do you feel this when you are playing? How does your music explain the mysteries of the universe? What is your aim in life and can you achieve it by playing? How does your music affect you as an individual? What about society as a whole?’

The most challenging exam of my life. Puzzling. People get straight to the point here; they don’t feel the need to warm up with empty chitchat. These questions make me think hard. Will this trip provide me with answers?

During the Sixth Suite a young man with a mouth organ sits down next to me and starts playing along with Bach’s harmonic progressions: G major, D major. When I finish, he begins to play some local melodies. I accompany him: C major, G major.

Lunch. I have decided to become a vegetarian for the rest of the trip. This is the easiest solution all round, and besides, vegetarian food here is very good. During my students years in Cologne I think I was a vegetarian for two years, because vegetarian food there was cheap. I could do it in Finland too, if finding good vegetarian food were as easy as it is here.

After lunch I go for a walk. I continue up The Ridge. A warm hillside. I see four eagles; one of them is circling barely 50 metres from where I stand. The city of the temple of the monkey god is full of monkeys. The eagles presumably fly up here from further across the mountains for a meal of roast monkey. I sit down to watch the flight of the eagles and start playing. I try to play in a way that mirrors the contours of the eagles’ flight: long lines, allowing the music to carry my thoughts, just as the eagle rests on the mass of warm, buoyant air.

There are never many listeners at any one time. Having said that, almost every other passer-by stops to listen for a moment, some for rather longer. During the Fifth Suite the sun goes behind a cloud; it turns cold and even the eagles disappear. Still, I manage to get to the end of the Sixth Suite without going into a tailspin, though I can’t help getting the sense that this is something of a forced landing….

A careful approach: Hanuman temple, Shimla. Photo: Stefan Bremer (2009)

January 22, Dharamsala

Slept for twelve hours! Three hours of practice, then yoga. I go to visit another masseur. In fact, I tried to reach this Tibetan-Chinese acupuncture masseur yesterday, but he wasn’t in. This time I go to make an appointment and am shown straight on to the massage table. Thumbs start kneading my buttocks.

‘Does this hurt?’ Yes, it hurts.

‘And here? What, it doesn’t hurt? What about here?’ Yes, it hurts.

The doctor convinces me to let him use one small needle. I manage not to faint. I try to think of it as a mosquito – after all, I let them bite me and eat in peace. After the procedure I feel much better, but maybe I’m just happy at overcoming my fear of needles and surviving the jab.

Later that afternoon I go back to the church. A young Irish couple is sitting outside. We chat for a while. All of a sudden the girl starts to laugh: ‘You must be the Finnish musician!’

The couple has already been in the village for a month taking part in a reiki healing course. That morning the girl opened a newspaper for the first time in a month, the national English-language newspaper The Times. It featured a photograph taken in Shimla showing me playing to street children. A short article said that I was travelling through the mountains. The girl said she’d thought that it would be nice to meet me. And now here she stands, giggling, and says that life is like a Kieślowski film.

Living in the local area there are four Christian families and a priest. An elderly gentleman standing outside gives me permission to play in the church. He says that the priest will be arriving soon. I play for half an hour for the Irish couple and the odd tourist.

The priest arrives. He quizzes me about what happened the day before. ‘Between four and five o’clock? Oh, so the door was open? You didn’t see anyone?’ Long pauses between each question.

Then: ‘Listen. Someone broke in here yesterday: our collection box was stolen. The window was smashed in. The big chain on the door was broken and that’s where they got away with the collection box. Don’t tell anyone you were here yesterday or you’ll be talking to the police for goodness knows how long.’

Okay! Got the point.

Then we agree that I will play in the church every day between three and five. Everyone is welcome to come and listen.

A little more playing followed by a yoga course for beginners – disappointing. Even the preliminary positions are so complicated that it will take years of practice for me to get into them.

Tibetan food.

Apparently the Dalai Lama arrived here this morning. Every now and then he gives public lectures in English. Suddenly the lights go out. My Tikka head lamp – what a marvellous purchase! These mountain storms are strange. The temperature is hovering around zero but there’s still plenty of thunder. The curtains billow in the gusts of wind, though the windows are shut. We won’t run out of air. It feels good to be here.

January 23,  Dharamsala

It’s early afternoon; I’m shivering beneath the blankets. The electricity comes on and off. Outside it’s sleeting. Still I managed to get in three and a half hours’ practice this morning. As I was practicing, I realised that in my imaginary practice session early that morning I had been playing some wrong notes. My pitching was a bit sketchy.

After practicing I do some yoga to warm up. Instead of doing the two-hour walk I have planned, I crawl back to bed. If only it would clear up. The kilometre-and-a-half walk to the church really doesn’t appeal.

It brightens up just before three o’clock! Clothes on then straight to the church. The snowline is 50 metres up the hill from where I am staying. 200 metres before the church it starts raining hailstones. I run to the church. Ten minutes’ warm-up. Eventually my hands are warm enough that I dare to start playing. Of course, there is no heating inside the church and the doors are always wide open.

My playing is almost going well. My audience consists of the priest, who is busy sweeping the yard, and a woman washing the floor. During the last piece, at the most difficult part of the fugue in the Third Sonata, the first outside listener arrives. Almost immediately I lose my concentration, so much so that I can’t get to the end of the fugue. After about ten attempts and a lot of fumbling around, I finally finish the movement on the wrong chord. Deeply embarrassing. Thankfully the final two movements seem to go smoothly enough. When you’re that ashamed, at least you don’t feel the cold. Before playing tomorrow, practice the fugues ten times!

I get a gig – as a photographer. The priest asks me to come back to the church the next morning to take photographs of a visiting bishop.

That evening I take my viola with me to dinner. There are people at two other tables in the restaurant. They ask me to play. We chat. At one table is an Indian reporter with Reuters, at the other the Tibetan reporter for an American company. In only a few days in India I’ve met more reporters than in the last ten years in Finland! The Tibetan wants to do an interview. I ask to see the questions in advance, because I know we’ll end up talking about politics. Now isn’t the time for silly jokes.

The next day I will see a student. A 17-year-old local boy had heard someone playing the violin and had liked it so much he had got himself a violin. To his disappointment, he so far hasn’t been able to get a note out of it. He may be even more disappointed once he does get a note out of it.

January 24, Dharamsala

The boy isn’t disappointed at all. The violin is terrible. It takes me half an hour just to put the strings in the right place across the bridge and the nut. Then I show him how to lift his hands, how to use the weight; how to hold the instrument and the bow. I try to explain what it should feel like.

Ten minutes later the boy can play a two-octave G major scale in tune, then A major; easy nursery rhymes; half an hour later even Frère Jacques. Soon our lesson is over.

By far the most talented beginner I’ve ever met. He says he has played the guitar, but even so! I could have taken photographs of the position of his hands and used them as teaching material. Tomorrow the boy and his friends are going to play me some local Tibetan music….

Bach makes kids wild: schoolchildren in Delhi. Photo: Stefan Bremer (2009)

January 25, Dharamsala

This morning I walk up as far as the snowline; it’s now at an altitude of about a couple of kilometres. The sun is just rising. Utterly still. From the other side of the valley I can hear the sounds of a religious mass. I find a sunny opening in the hillside forest and start to play. Three pine martens and four long-tailed parrots come to watch. The sun warms me and the air is fresh. Two such glorious mornings in a row!

About two hundred metres beneath me there is a road, about a hundred or so passers-by every hour. Almost all of them stop and turn their heads in bewilderment. Where is that music coming from? This instrument certainly has a very powerful sound; all you need is a decent concert hall.

More treatment for my sciatic nerve. The Tibetan acupuncture masseur I visited before gives me five needles in the buttocks and one in the neck. It’s ridiculous to be so scared of it, but I’m scared nonetheless.

I give an interview to the Tibetan reporter. As I suspected, every question has a political edge to it. He promises to send a draft of the article to my email so I can check it through.

Then more street playing in the same spot as yesterday. An old monk listens to almost the entire set, using his cane to shoo away curious people stopping in cars or on their motorbikes. Another person to stop is a Canadian convert. He moved here six months earlier after selling all of his possessions, including a large collection of Bach recordings. He knows all the Suites. He almost starts to cry with joy upon hearing his favourite music for the first time in months. He thanks my teachers. I join him in thanks.

That evening, back at the hostel in the cultural institute, my student who has just got his hands on a violin plays at least five different instruments – that must explain why he is such a quick learner. The hostel is home to 35 artists, all of whom can sing and act and play several instruments. On top of all that, my student still wants to learn to play the violin!

Tomorrow is Indian Independence Day. The festivities have already begun. In the distance I can hear the pounding of a bass.

January 26, Dharamsala

This morning I pack my things and pay my hotel bill: 19 euros for five days including hot water, heating and laundry. Then it’s out into the streets.

With the exception of my first day in Shimla, I’ve been playing with my viola case closed. There are plenty of people who need money here – far more, in fact, than in the poorest areas of China that I’ve ever visited. But this time I decide to play next to the beggars with my case open. I have made myself a little sign: For milk powder and rice. Thank you.

I play two of the Suites. Only one person stops to listen. Then some traders come out and shoo me off their patch. Is it because of my sign, or is it just one of those days?

I go back to make corrections to the interview by the Tibetan reporter. Sitting at the computer time flies past, and I forget that I have an appointment to keep. I have promised an earnest-looking shoeshine boy that today, the day I was to leave, I will meet him at twelve o’clock and buy some milk powder and rice for him and his younger sister.

I arrive sixteen minutes late. The boy is nowhere to be seen. Every day he has looked me up and asked: ‘Promise?’ I always reply: ‘Promise.’ And after all that, I don’t turn up.

I wait for the boy until one o’clock. He doesn’t show up. I give three beggar women the money I have reserved for milk powder and rice. What a mistake! I should have waited until I was about to get on the bus. Groups of beggars run up to me as though they have some kind of telepathic connection, pulling at my clothes and hanging from my limbs. And the women, to whom I gave the money, think it was not nearly enough: one of them tries to snatch all of the money from my wallet.

I dash into a nearby restaurant and don’t come out until the alley looks empty. But the beggars are still waiting. The flock gathers again in under a minute. I escape outside the village. Only once I reach the temple do the most determined of them finally give up.

I walk up to the clearing I found before. Again I see an eagle soaring overhead. I sit down to warm myself in the sunshine. I am reminded of someone I was at school with for twelve years. After she died she appeared in my dreams and introduced me to an eagle. ‘The eagle is your friend now; it will show you the way.’

Then there is the shoeshine boy. I gave him a solemn promise to show up. This ten-year-old boy, who has double-checked this important matter with me many times over, only waited a minute or so at our meeting place. He was clearly unable to take the disappointment of being let down by the rich tourist. And now he’s gone… I feel awful.

There are lots of elderly Tibetans on the path. Almost all of them give me an encouraging smile. Some mime playing the violin. When one of them finally asks me to play, I simply have to start. I feel drained. No Bach this time. Finnish classics, popular songs. Then some film themes. Modern Times, The Sound of Music and such like. I only play whenever I see people walking towards me along the path. Gradually I start to feel better.

After a while, my Canadian music-lover friend appears and says he has been looking for me all over. I’ve promised to play somewhere that afternoon. I play the Preludes from the First, Fourth and Sixth Suites. He says he prefers them played on the viola as opposed to on the cello. My emotional barometer rises immediately. I ask if I can have that comment that in writing.

I then play the Chaconne, which my listener doesn’t know. Before beginning, I encourage him to sit down in a comfortable position; the piece lasts around fifteen minutes. Once I have finished, he says: ‘It couldn’t have been that long. You only just started.’

After that I play Itsy Bitsy Spider to two children, who run off giggling. I’ve been playing for two hours. As I close my case, two eagles fly past, one behind the other, barely twenty metres from where I am standing. Perhaps one of them is the eagle my school friend showed me.

The sun is setting. I sit down in the bushes, by the side of a dusty path. I don’t dare go back to the village before dark. It is 5.45 in the evening. My bus leaves at seven. I start to pack up my things. In an hour, not a single person has walked past me.

I am just about to set off down the path towards the village, when the shoeshine boy appears at the bottom of the hillside with two of his friends. He walks up to me and looks at me gravely. I look back. Neither of us says a word. I dig a bundle of notes from my pocket and give them to him. The boy doesn’t look to see how much is there, but puts the money in his pocket and thanks me.

We walk back to the village together. As we part, the boy looks me in the eyes and says: ‘If you back, many small shoes.’ I look back at him and say: ‘Promise.’

Kieślowski or Kaurismäki?

My bus is leaving soon.

Translated by David Hackston

Music from the fells: figures on a Sámi shaman's drum

The Sámi, or Lapp, people invented yoiking (juoiggus; in Finnish, joiku) aeons ago. Today, this monophonic vocal music, or chanting, is still practised by Sámi artists, among them Wimme Saari (born 1959 in Enontekiö, 300 km north of the Arctic Circle, a son of a reindeer herdsman), who’s brought a new dimension to this ancient art form.

After experimenting with his tradition, Wimme’s first album, Wimme, was voted Finnish Folk album of 1995. In 2000, having identified connections between yoiking and native American singing, Navajo in particular, he toured in the US to critical acclaim.

Wimme’s yoik-inspired ‘Iddesolla’,  ‘Morning coffee’, is available on the Finnish Music Information Centre website – among other samples of different genres of Finnish music. (See the Fimic player on the home page.)

We think it’s got the right mood, of an early winter morning: listen to it yourself.

Vieläkö lähetämme hänelle sikareja? Sibelius, Amerikka ja amerikkalaiset. 24 tarinaa

Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) was very highly regarded in the United States; the world’s first Sibelius appreciation society was set up in a small town in Pennsylvania, and at one time there was even a sort of Sibelius cult in Boston. In 1935 American radio listeners voted Sibelius their favourite living composer of symphonies. Walt Disney was an admirer of Sibelius’ music, though his plan to transfer The Swan of Tuonela to the big screen was never realised. Sibelius’ affinity for fine cigars was widely known, and sending boxes of cigars to the composer became a typical expression of admiration among Americans. Cigars were sent by regular citizens as well as prominent figures like Louis Armstrong. This book consists of 24 accounts describing interactions between Sibelius and Americans. It also details rises and falls in Sibelius’ popularity.Glenda Dawn Goss, is an American expert on Sibelius and possesses a doctorate in musicology. She has lectured at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki since 2007.

Armas Järnefelt. Kahden maan mestari

The conductor and composer Armas Järnefelt (1868–1959) was a member of one of Finland’s most prominent cultural families. His sister Aino was married to the composer Jean Sibelius. From 1905 he was the conductor of the Royal Opera in Stockholm and became a Swedish citizen. In the 1930s Järnefelt served as the artistic director and conductor of the Finnish Opera, forerunner of today’s Finnish National Opera. This book covers the various stages of his life and surveys the background to his compositions, with input from a number of Finnish music experts. Järnefelt, as a composer of beautiful melodies, was a part of the National Romantic tradition; his best-known piece, Berceuse (1904), is familiar to listeners around the world in many adaptations. Influences from Richard Wagner and Jean Sibelius are often seen in Järnefelt’s works. This book provides a more complete artistic portrait of Järnefelt than the rather superficial coverage previously available. Prior to the publication of this book, the committee responsible for the editorial work was incorporated as a society dedicated to Armas Järnefelt and has released musical scores, recordings and performances of Järnefelt’s works.