Latviešu tautas teikas: Pasaules radīšana (Latvian Folk Tales: The Creation of the World) is a collection of 24 tales read in standard Latvian by a professional reader. Leons Krivāns reads clearly and with the right amount of expression—pleasant to listen to, but not too overdone. Kaspars Tobis provides bits of background music (mostly meditative synthesizer) and sound effects, but it still probably goes without saying that this compact disc is primarily for those listeners who understand the Latvian language.

The recording is part of the “Mantojums” series produced by UPE Recording Co. of Rīga. The first three recordings in the series were released in December.

As the title suggests, most of the tales are about the creation of various parts of the world: how the land was formed; how the hills and roads, the stars and the Big Dipper, the rainbow, the big river, and the dew were created. Most are clever explanations and many involve God and the foolish devil, but a couple of the tales are kind of silly. There are three tales about fire, and even a tale about solar and lunar eclipses.

The tales were selected from the collections of the well-known Latvian folk tale collectors Ansis Lerhis-Puškaitis (1859-1903) and Pēteris Šmits (1869-1938).

Lerhis-Puškaitis began already as a child to write down the stories and tales he heard from classmates in his dormitory, and by the end of his life he had recorded around 6,000 folk tales and fairy tales. He always tried to keep the tales true to the speakers dialect and speech idiosyncrasies.

Šmits was a linguist who eventually devoted more and more of his time to the collection of Latvian folklore. He published collections of folk beliefs, folk songs, traditional designs, and mythology in addition to a 15-volume collection of folk tales and fairy tales.

I recommend Latviešu tautas teikas: Pasaules radīšana to anyone who enjoys listening to folk tales. It’s great for children, but great for adults, too.

The other two recordings in the “Mantojums” series are Marija Golubova: Stāsti un dziesmas, featuring Marija Golubova telling stories and singing songs from her long life, and Putnu un zvēru valoda, with stories about the language of birds and animals told by Pēteris Liepiņš.

With the release of Marija Golubova: Stāsti un dziesmas, the Rīga-based UPE Recording Co. has begun a new series of recordings named Mantojums (Inheritance). The compact disc is one of three titles released last December.

Marija Golubova is a simple country woman from the far northeastern corner of Latvia, very near the border with the Abrene region, which is currently under Russian control. Stories and songs have always been an important part of her life, and on Stāsti un dziesmas (Stories and Songs) we hear a few of the stories from her long life—from walking barefoot through the snow after her husband’s arrest to her father’s recipe for beer to her admiration of ants and the whole of nature.

In between the stories, Golubova sings about a dozen of her songs, most of which are not part of the average Latvian’s repertoire. But it’s exactly for that reason that I was very happy to listen to the CD, because I like to hear new songs. All of the songs are, of course, sung in the Latgallian dialect, and two are Russian songs. In “Voi toutīt, kūkacīt,” Golubova sings a long string of verses to a melody more commonly known for its soldier words (“Div’ dūjiņas”). Another is a Jāņi song with the ļeigū refrain. Some of the other songs are: “Lec, saulīte, rijtā agri,” “Voi celinu man nabeja,” “Toutīts mani carādams,” “Patijk man tis kaļnins,” “Tī bej labi olu dzerti,” and “Skanu baļsini palaidu.”

It seems that most of the songs are in minor keys, not uncommon for Latvian songs. But it’s too bad that the CD does not include the song texts, because deciphering them just by listening to them is difficult. Most listeners will also really have to concentrate to understand even half of Golubova’s stories because of the heavy dialect.

There’s no way of putting it nicely—Golubova is an old lady, her voice cracks and goes in and out of tune, and she’s probably a few teeth short, too. But don’t you dare make fun of her. She still has amazing strength and confidence behind her 97-year-old voice, deep emotion in her stories, and a difficult life to describe.

Marija Golubova: Stāsti un dziesmas is not something you would put on as pleasant background music at your next dinner party. But it is an important and interesting recording for those who appreciate oral history and the real “roots” of folk music.

The other two recordings released in December are Pasaules radīšana, featuring creation stories told by Leons Krivāns, and Putnu un zvēru valoda, with stories about the language of birds and animals told by Pēteris Liepiņš.

Līgo, the latest compact disc in UPE Recording Co.‘s Latvian Folk Music Collection doesn’t sound like the Jāņi celebration I was at earlier this summer. Of course, the basic songs and the “līgo” refrains would have fit in. But this recording is more of an exercise in musical arrangement, more of an “art recording” by former Iļģi member Zane Šmite, Ilze Grunte and Mārtiņš Tauriņš.

Jāņi is the Latvian summer solstice celebration—the longest day and shortest night of the year—and “līgo” is the typical refrain of the summer solstice songs. “Līgo” means a type of swinging or swaying, also in the sense that in early summer everything in nature, as well as human activity, is “in full swing.” Jāņi tends to be a boisterous and exuberant celebration. But there is also a mystical side to Jāņi that often goes unnoticed: the quiet miracle of nature in full bloom and a yearning to become a part of it. It seems that this CD has tried to capture some of that mysticism, by way of modern arrangements of ancient folk tunes.

The CD begins with birds chirping and softly sung verses proclaiming that Jāņi is the holiest day of the year. This reverie is interrupted by a horn announcing the arrival of the loud neighbors and jāņabērni (Jāņi celebrators). The second and third songs are again quieter. Grunts and overtone singing make the fourth song, “Jāņu nakti nepazinu,” very masculine, almost macho. The next song, “Uz avotu līgot gāju,” has an easy-listening sound to it, while “Teku, teku” makes beautiful use of echoes. (Or is it a round? It’s hard to tell, but the result is entrancing.). Whispers and heavy breathing give “Sijāju uguni” a slightly disjointed sound. It is followed by an unruly version of the song-game “Dimdaru, damdaru.”

Līgo ends with one of my favorite Jāņi melodies. Against a background of static-like rain and with understandable tiredness in her voice—because it is a tradition to stay awake all night at Jāņi—the singer sings a farewell to Jānis, the namesake of the celebration, and tells him that everyone will be awaiting his return next year.

Mostly guitar, bass and nature sounds accompany the stylized songs of Līgo. If they are all, in fact, traditional melodies, then some of them are well hidden in the arrangements. As always in the Latvian Folk Music Collection, the liner notes provide the full text and translation for every song.

With nature at its fullest and all of the festivities taking place outdoors, Ive always felt like singing loudly at Jāņi. That’s why at first the mostly reserved manner of Līgo seems kind of out of place. That said, the CD does have that mystical feeling and is pleasant to listen to, although some may wonder whether it’s a bit too contemporary to be included in a collection of folk music.