The Finnish composer Yrjö Kilpinen is not well known today, but in the early twentieth century in Scandinavia, Germany, and England, he was hailed as the successor to Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Wolf in the line of Romantic Lied composers. Many have argued for the inclusion of his music in the American voice studio, but there remain impediments to the performance of his songs in their original language. One of his most poignant and famous cycles, Tunturilauluja, Opp. 52-54, remains inaccessible to most singers who are not fluent in Finnish and do not understand the Finnish culture upon which the songs are based. This essay is a performance guide to these songs and endeavors to make them accessible to sing in their original language.
The essay addresses many of the issues that have heretofore prevented performance of this cycle. A guide to Finnish translation and lyric diction is provided in addition to literal and poetic translations and an International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) transcription of the cycle. Kilpinen's life and song style is considered, with particular interest afforded to reasons for his marginalization after World War II. The essay contains the first English language source, however brief, on the cycle's obscure poet, the Laplander Vilho Edvard Törmänen. Kilpinen's setting of the poetry, guidelines for choosing individual songs, and the cycle considered as a whole are also discussed.
This performance guide takes a multidisciplinary approach to the songs, frequently referencing Finnish culture and Lapland geography, which sheds light on specific links between the landscape, poetry, and music. The essay contains discussions of Finnish art, National Landscape Imagery, and photographs from the author's personal research. This methodology facilitates non-fluent singers to sing this cycle in Finnish.