The project was documented in an impressive book accompanied by a recording of the musical works.Īs far as I know, these compositions have never been performed in public after the project, not even broadcast on radio, and the physical artworks lead a quiet existence on the walls of private collectors. This resulted in a major collection of pictures and compositions where the collaborating artists and composers managed to capture something fresh and significant. The idea was to bring together visual artists and composers to create new works based on Kalevala stories. In 2008, the Kalevala Society launched a project named the Artists’ Kalevala. Why is the very first Kalevala opera, Die Kalewainen in Pochjola by Karl Müller-Berghaus, being premiered in 2017, 127 years after it was written? Was the work neglected because it was written by a German composer? I think not. Why? Firstly, because our multitude of artworks based on the Kalevala have scarcely entered the core repertoire: they are only performed when there is cause to celebrate – to celebrate Finnishness, that is. But has it been such a thing any more, really, since the Second World War? Sometimes I doubt it. The Kalevala myth was a genuine source of inspiration for the fledgling Finnish nation in search of an identity. And that is not nothing in today’s marketing-strategy world. Väinämöinen and Maid Finland, in their various incarnations, have been the self-evident emblems of our national-cum-ethnic existence throughout Finland’s independence.Īnd when the time comes to celebrate, artists are the heroes of the nation: it is from them that the nation commissions something to build the future and to reinforce our conception of ourselves. A myth whose mental landscape conjures forth the stormy forces of creativity. The myth in whose epic and dramatic energy our nation found the strength to achieve political independence, found a cultural identity to defend fiercely in the face of war, and found its place as a nation among nations, a mystical people of the North. But we do have the Kalevala, we then remember. Finland is a young culture, we like to say.

Koirien Kalevala by Mauri Kunnas