Finnish popular dances

In Copenhagen in 1935 I wrote music for a film on a Finnish subject. There was a wedding scene, and of course they needed folk dance music, so I travelled to Helsinki for a few days to get hold of some books on folk dances and folk music. While still on the plane home I selected the music I wanted to arrange and even started composing it.

In my “Finnish folk dances” for string orchestra I used the wedding scene music from the film as well as other folk dances. I mixed together these short melodies which, according to tradition, are repeated many times, into Lied and Trios that I assembled in the manner of Western dances (minuet, gavotte…), the whole forming a suite of 7 dances :

“Askulan neliö” is a dance from Askola, practiced in the municipality of Askola in the south-west of Finland, “Palpankilli” is a song that tells the adventures of a young woman of little virtue who waits for the farm boys in Palpa, “Melkutus” is the name of a dance step, “Lintunen” is a little bird, “Vanha piika” means an old maid, “Haili” is a herring from the Baltic Sea and “Kumerus” means reverence.

The “Finnish popular dances” were first performed in 1937 at the Saratoga Music Festival in New York State.

— Ferenc Farkas