The Teppana Jänis album is released on vinyl in London

August 12, 2025

The Teppana Jänis album has been released on vinyl by the record label Death Is Not The End.

The album was originally released in 2021 by Ääniä Records and Temps Oy. It was the first in a series of publications of Kantele wax cylinder recordings that Arja Kastinen has studied and worked on.

The album features Armas Otto Väisänen‘s wax cylinder recordings of Teppana Jänis from the summers of 1916 and 1917.  The original wax cylinders are stored at the Finnish Literature Society Archive.

Teppana Jänis was born in the village of Uuksujärvi in Suistamo on 21 June 1850. After becoming blind in the late 19th century, he went house to house, supporting himself by playing the kantele. He performed at dances and in schools, and also participated in the Suistamo kantele and runosong competitions in 1911. At the event, the sculptor Alpo Sailo made a bust of Teppana Jänis, which is now in the National Museum of Finland. In the summer of 1921, Jänis appeared at the Helsinki Song Festival at the invitation of Armas Otto Väisänen. Teppana Jänis died while on a playing trip in Suistamo on 8 December 1921.

There are 17 tracks on the album: 15 tunes from Teppana Jänis and two of them also as re-arranged. Most are dance tunes from the early 20th and late 19th century.

There is also one common song of the time – Vaivazen pojan laulu – which Teppana both played on the kantele and sung with the kantele accompaniment. The accompaniment was performed in the same manner as it has been mentioned with the runosongs: the kantele is either played in unison with the singing or it takes the role of the other singer. In the latter case, the singer and the kantele alternate phrase by phrase, and the kantele joins the last beats of the singer. In addition, he album features a runosong performed by Taito Hoffrén, and one church bell tune (– a beautiful example of a special area of the tradition).

The original recordings have been combined with replayed material, taking into account the additional information and notes found in Väisänen’s sheet music manuscripts.