Soivien kivien kyläreitti

Welcome to the village route of chiming stones

Kaustinen with its slightly over 4,000 inhabitants is a significant centre for Finnish folk music. The fiddle tradition of Western Finland, dating back at least to the 1760s, has retained its original stylistic features and unique strength in the municipality. The Kaustinen folk musicians (‘pelimanni’) have mastered the tradition but also created new music based on it.

Since its inception in 1968, the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival has been the main annual event for Finnish folk music and its performers and enthusiasts. From the very beginning, it has also been an international event.

Almost every village has its own local folk ensemble, and these ensembles have always played an important role in the folk music culture of Kaustinen. The folk music tradition is present in practically everything in the municipality. In the centre of town, various interesting destinations have been created around the folk music festival over the decades.

The café keeper and heritage activist Santeri Isokangas used to say that “one day, even our stones will chime and the whole universe will know our music”.

Welcome to the village route of chiming stones!

Discuss on Twitter #SoivatkivetGL!

Tweet #SoivatkivetGL

#SoivatkivetGL tweets

Introduction

The exceptionally active and lively Western Finnish fiddle tradition and style of Kaustinen date back at least 300 years. In the 1600s, fiddling spread among the peasant population in Sweden. Seafaring, trade and increased mobility gradually made the instrument more common on the eastern coast of the Gulf of Bothnia (i.e. present western Finland) as well.

The new violin music was youth music. The earliest folk musicians in Kaustinen known by their name are found in the 1700s registers of church councils for having breached the prohibition to play in dances on Sundays. On the other hand, the relatively tolerant religious atmosphere has been regarded as one reason for the folk music boom in Kaustinen.

For example, in 1759 the Yliveteli chapel parish, to which Kaustinen belonged, imposed a fine of 12 öre on the host of a dance hall. The dancers and folk musicians at the event were allowed to choose between the stocks and a fine. At the parish catechetical meeting in 1784, Vicar Anders Chydenius himself disapproved of the dances.

Even though peasant melodies shared some features with the music favoured by the gentry, their sounds were different. The instruments, dances and part of the melodies originally came from foreign countries and from the gentry, but the musicians of the peasant community developed individual ways of playing that required talent and extensive practice.

In the peasant culture, the violin became the instrument played at weddings. The heyday of the fiddle tradition in the western part of Finland was in the 1700s and the 1800s. Big weddings could last for up to three days, and the best folk musicians would play there for hours in multiphase potpourri dances and ceremonies. Because big weddings were rare, people began to arrange other kinds of dance events as well. The best wedding musicians also played at the dances that lasted for days, while even one player of a more modest standard was enough for small “corner dances”.

In the late 1800s, violin music started to be accompanied first by the pipe organ and later by the harmonium. At the dawn of the 1900s, modern trends replaced the wedding tradition and a new kind of music culture gained ground. By the 1950s, only a few musicians still mastered the individual, old-world playing style – except for in Kaustinen, where the tradition was preserved through conscious revival. Instead of big weddings, people started to organise such musical events as youth association dances, folk music competitions and open jam sessions at the café of the heritage activist Santeri Isokangas. The wedding tradition, however, did not disappear completely. The 1950s radio recordings of the band Kaustisen Purppuripelimannit made folk music and Kaustinen known throughout the country. Particularly the popularity of Konsta Jylhä’s compositions and the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival at the end of the 1960s launched the folk music renaissance that continues to this day. Kaustinen became the centre of Finnish folk music.

Kaustinen Folk Music Festival in summer 2018 (photo: Yle 16.7.2018)

A member of the ensemble Salonkylän pelimannit stated in the mid-1980s that he had started to play in his teenage years, a little before the Winter War. His neighbours were playing actively, so he sometimes had to go and ask them how to read notes. Music was played in several houses of the village, and the young musician sometimes had a chance to play with skilled folk musicians.

The folk music boom that has persisted since the 1960s has been greatly influenced by Konsta Jylhä, Wiljami Niittykoski and many others after them, who started to compose songs that had their roots in the old tradition but also explored and crossed the boundaries of musical styles. In addition to the village ensembles from Kaustinen that play in the traditional style, such bands and composers from Kaustinen as JPP, Frigg, Ville Kangas, Ville Ojanen and Häävi create modern folk music that is based on tradition and interests music lovers of all ages. The internationally renowned Näppäri Method was developed in Kaustinen to teach children and adolescents to make music.

Actors and sources

Manuscript: Folk Music Institute and Kari Ilmonen (translation by Sirpa Vehviläinen, University of Jyväskylä Language Services)

Photos: Kari Ilmonen and Folk Music Institute

Graphic layout: Creamedia

Team: Kari Ilmonen, Lauri Oino, Matti Hakamäki, Maria-Elisa Marjusaari, Touko Kentala, Tuomo Härmänmaa, Veli-Matti Tornikoski and Matias Meriläinen

Sources:

Ala-Könni, Erkki: Perhonjokilaakson suomalaispitäjien kansanmusiikki 1800-luvulla. Teoksessa Kokkolan pitäjän yläosan historia. Kirj. Pentti Virrankoski. Kokkola 1961.

Hanhikoski Terttu 2007, Ja sitte me soitethin, laulethin ja tanssithin… Kaustisen Pelimanniyhdistys ry.

Helistö, Paavo: Konsta: Konsta Jylhän, pelimannin ja kansansäveltäjän tarina. Kansanmusiikki-instituutin julkaisuja, 42. Kaustinen 1997.

Ilmonen, Kari: Pelimannikulttuuri ja moderni maaseutuyhteisö. Chydenius-Instituutin julkaisuja nro 18. Kokkola 1986.

Kolehmainen Ilkka (toim.): Mestaripelimannit. Kansanmusiikki-instituutin julkaisuja nro 33. Kaustinen 1992.

Konsta Jylhä https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konsta_Jylh%C3%A4

Känsälä Risto: Sivukamaritupa. Kansanmusiikki-instituutti. Sananjalka nro 26. Kaustinen 1984.

Laitinen, Heikki: ”Kaustislaisuuden” synty. Kaustisen ensimmäiset kansanmusiikkijuhlat ja maaseutukulttuurin paluu 1960-luvun lopun Suomessa. Suomalaisen ja vertailevan kansanrunoudentutkimuksen laudaturtyö. Tampereen yliopisto 1977.

Laitinen, Heikki: Talonpoikaismusiikin suuri murros. Teoksessa Musiikkikulttuurin murros teollistumisajan Suomessa. Toim. Vesä Kurkela ja Riitta Valkeila. Jyväskylän yliopiston musiikkitieteen laitos 1982. S. 131–134.

Laitinen Heikki: Viisikymmentä kertaa Kaustinen. Kansanmusiikki-lehti (erikoisnumero 2B) 2017. S. 8-13.

Pelimannitalo (Kaustinen) https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelimannitalo_(Kaustinen)

Pulkkinen, Marjatta: Puhu Pulukkinen! Vetelin Pulkkisia vanhoina aikoina 1995.

Tarinaa Pelimannitalosta. Arviiti – Kaustisen historiallinen tietokanta http://www.arviiti.fi/tarinaa-pelimannitalosta/

Valo, Vesa-Tapio: Salonkylän musiikkihistoriaa. Teoksessa Viljami Niittykosken Nuottikirja. Toim. Juha Kangas ja Simo Westerholm. Kansanmusiikki-instituutin julkaisuja nro 3. Kaustinen 1980.

Westerholm, Simo: JU PET sanoi Santeri. Santeri Isokangas (1885–1967) yrittäjänä ja Kaustisen kansanmusiikin vaalijana. Kansanmusiikki-instituutin julkaisuja nro 19. Kaustinen 1985.