Olavi Virta

Music is strongly associated with the Romani people. Singing was always a part of travelling with horse-drawn wagons or sleighs, or resting by the campfire. Music still occupies a large role in the lives of many Romani today, even as traditional lifestyles are being replaced by modern ones.

Historical research very often starts with the researcher consulting archives. Finland has a wide variety of libraries and archives with material on a wide range of subjects, including Sibelius, church music from the Middle Ages, folk music and popular music.

The tango arrived in Finland during the great European tango fever of 1911—1913. Eventually in the 1930s Finns really started composing tangos themselves, which led to a form of the tango that is only a distant relative of its Argentinean counterpart. These days many composers look back to South America for tango inspiration.

Finland has taken the potato from Peru — potato in Finnish is peruna, by the way — and the tango from Argentina. Both these South American imports are cultivated in these northern latitudes perhaps even more devotedly than in their countries of origin. Pekka Gronow reports on the way in which the tango has taken root in Finland and stubbornly survived even the arrival of Elvis and The Beatles.