Video: Heil Dir Holle

Heil Dir Holle. A song to Frau Holle by Birgit Knorr of Kindred of the Northern Hammer, San Diego CA. The song was sung during an Urglaawe rite at Trothmoot 2013 (thetroth.org).

Amorphis Guitarist Discusses Upcoming Album

"Released on May 27, 2011 via Nuclear Blast Records, "The Beginning Of Times" was described as "the most challenging AMORPHIS album so far in terms of both music and lyrics." Its central character is the iconic hero of Finnish mythology, Väinämöinen, whose tale has been masterfully retold by lyricist Pekka Kainulainen." Read the full article at Blabbermouth.

Rediscovering the spirit of Sibelius

Lemminkäisen äiti (Lemminkäinen's mother) by Akseli Gallen-Kallela 1897 – Lemminkäinen's mother on the banks of the river of Tuonela reviving her son. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

"Sibelius's seven symphonies loom like dark, brooding enigmas over the entire orchestral repertoire. Nearly 90 years after the last was completed – the radical and still influential Seventh in 1924 – they still pose a challenge to orchestras and conductors keen to realise their brave new worlds of sound. There are things in Sibelius's symphonies that music had never done before, new kinds of sounds at the outer limits of orchestral possibility. At one pole of his imagination are the evocations of epic landscapes, as in the unforgettable big tunes at the end of the Second or Fifth. At the other, there's the microscopic detail of his orchestration, the subtlety and shimmer of his string-writing – as if Sibelius had taken the lens of his musical imagination and zoomed in on individual pine needles in the vast forests of his Finnish homeland."

The full text of this article by Tom Service about the composer who gave musical life to the Kalevala, in much the same way Wagner did for the Nibelungenlied, may be read at the Guardian.

Beowulf Musical Spoof to premiere in London

"Join Beowulf, along with Grendel, Grendel's mother, his sidekick Wiglaff, King Hrothgar and a bladderful of other characters in a maelstrom of bad jokes, great music, excruciating audience participation and downright dangerous dough dodging." Read more at Broadway World.

The Swan of Tuonela

Jean Sibelius "Four Legends from the Kalevala, Op. 22," unused sequence from the original "Fantasia (Walt Disney, 1940)."

Einherjer Return With New Album Next Week

"Einherjer's new album, Norrøn, will be released Friday, September 9th in Europe and in North America on Tuesday, September 13th." Full story at Anti-Music, includes background on how the band took its name from the slain warriors in Valhalla.