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My first exposure to the long aesthetic of small kantele improvisation was in the early 1980s. I attended Kaustinen Music High School for the final two years and volunteered several times at the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival during the decade, as well as participating in various courses at the Folk Music Institute. There was a […]

Professor Stig Nyström (1924–2018, Helsinki) was not only a doctor of medicine but also a visual artist. A very special kantele (SM883), a Kalevala symbolist artwork made by him was donated to the Sibelius Museum in 1993. The kantele was completed immediately after the Continuation War in 1944–1945, when Nyström was 20 years old. During […]

Who was E. Lekve, whose name is engraved on the bottom of the carefully crafted kantele SM496 in the Sibelius Museum? The kantele was donated to the Sibelius Museum in 1974. The instrument had belonged to the donor’s mother’s father, stationmaster Mauno Paatero (1866-1908), who had bought the kantele from its maker, E. Lekve, at […]

In the information about the origin of the kantele SM128 in the Sibelius Museum, there is one sentence: “Tillhört Albert Edelfelt” – could this really be Albert Edelfelt’s kantele? Albert Edelfelt (1854–1905), once the undisputed leading figure of Finnish art and internationally one of the most famous Finnish painters, was born in a noble manor […]

The Sibelius Museum kantele SM124 may be the only Taivassalo kantele in Finnish museums. It has so many unique and special features that I’d write science fiction about it if I could. The maker of this instrument has put a lot of effort into the planning and execution of the design, but what she or […]