tango

"One instantly gets the concept when a tango album begins with the sound of an Indian tambura drone!"

When Alfonso Padilla arrived in Finland from Chile in 1975, the brand of tango found in his new homeland was for him mainly a source of bemusement. Now, more than 40 years later, he is completing an extensive research project on the Finnish tango.

This band is in a class of its own: an ensemble of four harmonicas that creates its own material, drawing on Finnish folk music, Balkan rhythms and tango. Founded in 2003, Sväng put their inimitable stamp on everything they perform, demonstrating that Chopin and Sibelius too had a folk music streak in them!

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.

" The repertoire, which includes 'Jealousy' by Jacob Gade, 'Stella by Starlight' and two versions of 'Finlandia', is executed masterfully. The musicians dig deep down into the grief of the Finnish soul, while still retaining some humour now and then."

" All nations have an indigenous construct of 'popular music' which is largely unknown abroad. "

"This time I’m especially impressed by the slow and lyrical tangos, although sometimes I fear the danceable side of the tango starts to get lost."