Kalevala Songs.

Abstract

The text for <italic>Kalevala Songs</italic> is taken from <italic>The Kalevala</italic>, an epic poem of the Finnish people, translated by Eino Friberg in 1988. The stories, or <italic>runos</italic>, of <italic>The Kalevala </italic> were passed down orally through generations by <italic>runo</italic> singers. In the mid-nineteenth century, Elias Lonnrot journeyed into the rural areas of Finland to document and organize the <italic>runos</italic> into a published whole. One of the <italic>runo</italic> singers that Lonnrot used in his gathering of <italic>Kalevala</italic> stories was an ancestor of mine. <italic>Kalevala Songs</italic>, for choir, three soloists, two percussionists, piano and solo violoncello, uses several folk tunes of the <italic>runo</italic> singers, and attempts to present them in a modern, personal light. While <italic> runo</italic> songs are sometimes quoted and occasionally transformed in this piece, they mainly serve as inspiration to compose my own music. A formal device of the <italic>runos</italic> is the use of refrain: a <italic>runo </italic> singer would use refrain as both a memory aid and a springboard for elaboration. In the third movement of <italic>Kalevala Songs</italic>, a refrain is elaborated upon and extended, while in the first and fourth movements, I present short phrases of the folk tunes in a layered texture. In the fifth movement, I quote an entire <italic>runo</italic> melody against a controlled vocal improvisation based on intervallic cells from various other <italic> runo</italic> songs. In my <italic>Kalevala Songs</italic>, I have taken existing <italic> runo</italic> songs and stories, and through my own composition, continued the creative tradition of the <italic>runo</italic> singer.