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Written in Folk Roots issue 180, 1998

MARTTI POKELA
Snow Kantele - Sámi Suite
Warner Finlandia Innovator 0630-19052-2 (1997)

Martti Pokela is Finland’s most influential and innovative modern kantele player, who in his playing, teaching and composition has not only had a large influence on the Finnish folk music revival but has reunited traditional improvisational and dance music styles on kantele with the so-called “classical” approach that branched off into flirtation with European-style classicism earlier in the 20th century.
      Kantele? Oh, right - it’s the form of psaltery found around the Baltic, most strongly in Finland. The root design in Finland has five strings, but there are a variety of larger forms up to the concert kantele which has 34-36 steel strings and a lever system to get at semitones. In no kantele do the strings make contact with the soundboard via bridges; they run more or less directly from tuning pin to anchor point, and this is a major factor in the instrument’s characteristic clear, silvery ringing sound.
Snow Kantele is a collection of new Martti Pokela pieces, some evolved together with leading young kantele players Timo Väänänen and Sari Kauranen, who share with Pokela the playing here, joined by Sinikka and Matti Kontio, and also by occasional wordless vocalising from Anna-Kaisa Liedes and Maija Karhinen. Instrumentation is mainly the big silky-sounding concert kanteles, with a touch of 5-string, jouhikko (bowed lyre) and musical saw.
      These aren’t neat, four-square tunes; the music flows, floats, ripples and swells, deep ringing, sudden damping, and clusters of snow-crystal high notes. There’s no sense of aimless wandering, though - every note is meant and controlled. The listener drifts through musical spaces - track titles like Midges, Dog, Bear Trail, or Stream on the Fell are signposts more to Pokela’s thinking and sense of humour than necessary explanations. It’s like being taken in to a silent, special place and shown something beautiful without being told what to think.


© 1998 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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