There are
numerous recordings of music from Finland that date back to the
very dawn of the 20th century – in fact, the very first Finnish
records were manufactured by the British company Gramophone in
1901. Among the most noteworthy early discs are works by renowned
songbird Aino Ackté. Her first recordings date back to
1902 and 1903, which Gramophone released after purchasing the
masters from French label Zonophone in 1903.
However,
us Finns had been independent for a good two decades before we
got our first completely Finnish record label. Founded in 1938
by the Turku-based Saaristokauppa Oy, the Sointu label concentrated
on producing radio-friendly schlager music. In the beginning,
Sointu made its recordings in the Swedish capital of Stockholm,
but shortly the company moved all of its operations to the homeland.
Sointu
remained the only local label for just two years: In 1940, during
the truce with the Soviet Union soon after the Winter War, Oy
Rytmi Ab was founded in Helsinki partly in cahoots with the Finnish
Broadcasting Corporation YLE. As in Sointu's case, the main area
with Rytmi was schlagers. The shining star of the label was singer/actor
Olavi Virta, Finland's undisputed "tango king" and our
equivalent to the likes of Carlos Gardel and Frank Sinatra. During
his career, "Ola" recorded close to 600 tunes.
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