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Written in Folk Roots issue 148, 1995

MINNA RASKINEN
Paljastuksia/Revelations
Olarin OMCD 64 (1995)

Essentially a set of unfretted strings stretched over a suitably-shaped box, and coming in many forms throughout the Baltic region, the kantele bears the responsibility of being Finland’s national instrument, in Kalevala legend first created by Väinämöinen from the jawbone of a pike.
      In Finland its archetypal form has five strings, fanning out from a single horizontal metal attaching bar to individual tuning pegs without direct contact with the soundboard. The same basic construction is found in those with up to about 15 strings, but in the bigger kanteles the design changes, including giving each of the strings (numbering up to about 36) its own hitch pin.
These big, box kanteles have also been developed further by the addition of a hinged damping plate, and in the case of the concert kantele of lever-operated pitch bending rollers. This latter form, first made in the 1920s, has been seen as the instrument for so-called “classical” kantele music, but recently its most skilled and creative players, including Minna Raskinen, have sprung mainly from the Folk Music Department of Sibelius Academy, inspired particularly by the radical and witty work of player, composer and teacher Martti Pokela.
      Raskinen, like most of these players, uses both big and small kanteles, but on this album concentrates on her own compositions for concert kantele.
      There’s a melodic warmth about her music; her technique is considerable, but it’s always in the service of expressiveness. The kantele makes such a serenely beautiful sound that it would be easy to make sweetly vacuous music; therefore it has to be challenged, and she does. She uses its full range from rich ringing bass to rippling silvery high notes, and makes full use of the possibility of using pitch levers to not only change key but to bend a note as it’s played, producing singing notes sliding through the hovering resonance of the other strings, as well as other techniques including harmonics, damping, vibrato (achieved by pressing the string while playing a harmonic, and evoking echoes of the time she’s spent in Japan and with Chinese musicians) and, on the final track Pimeess’ Tanssii (Pocket Light Dance), hitting and stroking the strings with a brush. The tunes have a satisfying balance between strong established melodic structure and the extemporisation which is a central feature of Finnish folk music, kantele playing in particular, and keeps it a constantly developing, living thing.


© 1995 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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