How Nordic cow-calling traditions inspire composer Lara Poe
How Nordic cow-calling traditions and her grandmother’s upbringing inspired composer Lara Poe
A woman calling livestock in Norway in 1952. Arne F. Køpke/ Riksarkivet/ Billedbladet NÅ
How Nordic Cow-Calling Traditions and Her Grandmother’s Upbringing Inspired Composer Lara Poe
Composer Lara Poe was caught by surprise just before the start of a 2022 performance of Sibelius’ Luonnotar by the Finnish soprano Anu Komsi. As Komsi entered the stage at London’s Barbican Hall, she was singing a traditional Nordic cow-calling tune.
Poe (’16, CAS’16), whose grandmother was raised on a farm in Finland, recognized the sound immediately. “This was not on the program,” she says. “I didn’t realize she was familiar with this tradition as well. And it was a really interesting sound to hear in this space.”
That performance got Poe thinking about incorporating Nordic cow-calling into a composition.
The centuries-old tradition of cow-calling is typically performed by women. The calls sound different depending on the region where they originated, but feature drawn-out melodic chants meant to capture the attention of cattle and pull them back from their pastures. “In Sweden, for instance, you tend to get more of this kind of singsong, high-register thing,” Poe says. “In Finland, you tend to get something that kind of jumps between registers a lot more. It’s more of a belting chest voice, and it’s meant to carry long distances, to call cows back from across however many fields they’ve wandered. It has to carry.”
Composer Lara Poe’s song cycle, Laulut maaseudulta (Songs from the Countryside), was inspired by her grandmother’s upbringing in Kauklahti, Espoo, Finland, during World War II. Courtesy of Lara Poe
In fall 2023, Poe began work on a song cycle, Laulut maaseudulta (Songs from the Countryside), which features Finnish cow-calling and is inspired by her grandmother’s upbringing in Kauklahti, Espoo, Finland, during World War II. “They had cows, so that was a nice way of tying everything together.”
The piece had its premiere at the renowned BBC Proms classical music festival on August 25, 2024, and was performed by Komsi. On September 1, it was performed at the Helsinki Festival, where Poe’s grandmother was able to watch the performance live.
Listen to Lara Poe’s Laulut maaseudulta (Songs from the Countryside). Video by gɹinblat.
Poe had interviewed her grandmother about her upbringing and used the transcript to create the text for the song cycle. “When my grandmother was a child, for example, Russia was trying to invade the area,” she says. “There’s this big, tempestuous storm section [in the piece], which is in some ways a metaphor for that.”
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