Santa time is nearly here

[maugein96]

Continuing with the Finnish theme here is a pleasant folk tune entitled Memories of Rovaniemi Market, played by Esko Könönen, one of a number of Finnish accordionists who also played French musette. Esko was actually born in Karelia, in the part which is now part of Russia, but his family had moved to Finnish Karelia before it was partitioned after WW2. He died in Lahti, Finland in 1983 at the age of 52, otherwise he would have been better known.

Rovaniemi is in Finnish Lapland and is the official residence of Santa Claus. At the moment the weather is quite mild at only -8c. I used to live about 200 miles further north across the border in Norway, where it could get down to about -25c at this time of year. However it is just above freezing there tonight, but the weather will revert to type later this week with -13c during the day.

So wrap up warm and enjoy the clip. For the purists, it is regarded as a Jenkka or Schottische.

 

[hais1273]

Some very nice clips here, and some handsome accordions as well. Just when I think I'm to grips with accordions I find out there is yet another subtle variation on the basic pattern.

I've only been to Finland once, probably about 20 years ago now. We had a "booze" cruise to Helsinki with my wife's cousin and his partner.

My wife's cousin lived in Stockholm and we occaisionly visited them. He was an interesting character, he found himself living in Sweden after he was kicked out of Betram Mills circus there sometime in the late 1960's. He was caught with his employers daughter in the horse acts hayloft, the young lady's Father took a dim view of this and he was instantly sacked!

Anyway, Helsinki was cold and snowy despite being there at Easter. The sea was still frozen. The last time we were in Stockholm was for the Millenium celebrations. By Sussex standards *&^%^$% cold!

No accordion music though.

 

[maugein96]

The world is full of interesting people, and I wish I knew more of them. Don't think I've ever met any circus performers, other than some of my ex bosses!

Quite a long time ago since I was a resident of the frozen north, and had no real interest in the accordion at the time, despite the international popularity of Toralf Tollefsen (mid 70s). We were about 80 miles from the Finnish border, but never ventured there, and to this day I've never been. Later, when I was interested and played the accordion, I picked up one or two accordion CDs whilst on holiday in Sweden over the years, and some of them featured Finnish players. I did notice that the buttons were arranged differently, but presumed it was a variation of the Russian B system. In fact, Roland describe the configuration as "Finnish B griff", which is incorrect.

To be honest I never cared much for the CDs concerned which IMO were a bit "doom and gloom", and all I wanted to hear in those days was French musette, so I got rid of them.

The advent of You Tube has probably been the single best thing to have happened to those of us who take an interest in the musical styles of "foreign" countries, as it makes you realise that the music of the world is not confined to what was formerly available on CDs. I well remember ordering loads of CDs "blind" from France, and ended up binning most of them as I never liked the content. These days you can usually find sound samples of what you fancy before you waste your hard earned coin, and if you don't like certain tracks on an album then you only need to buy (download) the ones you do like. Great!

From what I've heard, IMO the Finns seem to offer accordion music which is a bit easier on the ear than the music produced by their Scandinavian and Russian neighbours. They also have an instrumental retro electric guitar style called Rautalanka, which I listen to regularly.

In recent years I have broadened my outlook somewhat in my listening, and Finnish accordion is something I'm hoping to learn a lot more about.

There is a chance the "mystery 1930s" accordion is a Kouvola, a Finnish make which was made in a town of the same name until 1995, when the factory closed.

I'm hoping to eventually identify and listen to a lot more Finnish players very soon.

The Roland FR4xb has been trialled by a young lady named Netta Skog, who plays just about everything on it including heavy rock "guitar". There is another bald Finnish guy with a more conventional approach, but I cannot find him again on YT.

Thanks for reminding us about Finnish accordion. It doesn't get much of a look in with all the other more famous world styles.