Grab a sword and join us on our quest to retrieve the Sampo from the evil residents of North Farm. Tomorrow morning on WPRB, to coincide with the anniversary of the birth of Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), we’ll have a full morning of music inspired by the Kalevala.
The Kalevala, a collection of fifty long narrative poems, is regarded as the Finnish national epic. Its fantastic and heroic tales informed the work of Finland’s greatest artists at a time when the country began to surge toward independence after 700 years of Swedish rule and an additional century as a duchy of the Russian Empire.
We’ll hear music from a variety sources, although of course Sibelius, who throughout his career returned again and again to the Kalevala for inspiration, will feature most prominently. Less well known, perhaps, beyond the borders of Finland, will be works like Robert Kajanus’ “Aino Symphony,” Uuno Klami’s “Kalevala Suite” and Einojuhani Rautavaara’s “The Myth of Sampo.”
We’ll have all of these and more tomorrow morning. It’s definitely going to be epic, from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. What we lack in polish, we’ll make up in Finnish, on Classic Ross Amico.
