She Sang in a Beautiful Light Voice: Musical Qualities of Runosong Performances in Fieldwork Reports

Folklore has been systematically collected in Estonia over 150 years, resulting in more than 500 fieldwork reports, diaries, and travelogues, in addition to folklore texts. Since runosongs were in the preferred position when folklore was collected, most of the fieldwork reports contain descriptions of encounters with people who knew and performed runosongs. As a genre of oral tradition, runosongs have text and melody, as well as certain performance practices and contexts of use. These self-evident aspects, regrettably, do not manifest themselves equally either in the archived folklore materials or fieldwork reports. The article starts with a discussion on the reasons why collectors wrote so little about the melodies and musical aspects of the performance of runosongs. Then the focus goes on descriptions and evaluations of the musical aspects of the runosong performances in the fieldwork accounts and analysis of how the preparation and musical background of the collector influences evaluations and perceptions. The most common aspects of evaluations come under consideration: the prominence and peculiarities of the runotunes, the characteristics and qualities of the performer’s voice, and the musical skills of the performer.