Music of Latvia

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Traditional Latvian music is often set to traditional poetry called

drone vocal styles, and Baltic psaltery
.

Dainas

warfare "Apuolė 854
" in Apuolė Castle mound, August 2009

Traditional Latvian folklore, especially the dance of the folk songs, date back well over a thousand years. More than 1.2 million texts and 30,000 melodies of folk songs have been identified.[1]

Dainas are very short, which usually consist only one or two stanzas, are unrhymed, and are in a four-footed trochaic metre. Lyrically, dainas concern themselves with native mythology, but in contrast to most similar forms, do not have any legendary

Krišjānis Barons
.

Latvian traditional folk song "Div' dūjiņas gaisā skrēja" performed by Lizete Iesmiņa-Mihelsone.

Latvju tautas mūzikas materiāli, translated in English as the Materials of Latvian Folk Music, is the anthology and commentary of Latvian folk. It analysed 5999 items of Latvian ethnography published in 6 editions from 1894 to 1926 by the Latvian musicologist and composer Andrejs Jurjāns (1856–1922).[2]

Latvju tautas mūzikas materiāli Sestā grāmata (the sixth book) was published posthumously in Riga, 1926. On page 1 latvju komponistu biedrības izdevums is inscribed, translated as the Latvian Society of Composers edition.[3]

Instrumentation

Latgale kokles

Accompaniment to the village songs is played on various traditional instruments, the most significant of which is the

apprentices.[5]

Classical music

2008 Latvian Song and Dance Festival

Latvian National Song and Dance Festival
takes place with around 20,000 singers taking part in it.

The 2014 World Choir Games took place in Riga.[6]

This year (2019) Latvia hosts the inaugural Riga Jurmala Music Festival, a new festival in which world-famous orchestras and conductors perform across four weekends during the summer. The festival takes place at the Latvian National Opera, the Great Guild, and the Great and Small Halls of the Dzintari Concert Hall. This year features the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Russian National Orchestra.[7]

Internationally famous Latvian musicians include conductors

Kristīne Opolais
.

Popular music

During the

folk songs, offered a chance to rebel against the local authorities. Imants Kalniņš was the most important composer of the time, and his songs were extremely popular. He also wrote music for the movie "Four White Shirts", which spoke about the need for freedom and was therefore banned. One of the most important social gatherings of the time was the annual Imantdiena
('The Day of Imants (Kalniņš)'), forbidden on grounds of interfering with hay-gathering. The tradition continued informally at the composer's house.

The songs of

Pērkons
certainly played an important role in the lives of the youth of the time and were a serious challenge to the Soviet system.

Nowadays, the pop music sphere is dominated by

Prāta vētra[8]) and alternative rock
.

List of composers and bands in Latvia

Composers of contemporary music[9] Rock or (and) Pop Other

See also

References

  1. ^ "Welcome to Latvia – Folk Songs". Li.lv. 1 May 2006. Retrieved 16 October 2010.
  2. ^ "Composers and Authors /Jurjans, Andrejs (1856–1922)".
  3. ^ "Materials of Latvian Folk Music. Vol. 6" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 February 2015.
  4. ^ Sheeter, Laura (29 October 2005). "Latvia celebrates national instrument". BBC News. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  5. ^ "Kokle master preserves 'the sound of a Latvian soul'". China Daily. 4 November 2005. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
  6. ^ Service, Tom (11 July 2014). "World Choir Games: the lessons we must learn from Latvia". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  7. ^ "About the Festival – Riga-Jurmala".
  8. ^ Kaljo, Egils (9 March 2012). "Prātā Vētra plays to 40,000 in Mežaparks". Latvians Online. Retrieved 24 August 2005.
  9. ^ "Music in Latvia". Music.lv. Retrieved 9 March 2012.

External links

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