Music of Latvia

Stories often revolve around pre-Christian deities like the sun goddess Saule, the moon god Mēness and, most notably, the life of people, especially its three most important events – birth, wedding, and death (including burial).

[2] Latvju tautas mūzikas materiāli Sestā grāmata (the sixth book) was published posthumously in Riga, 1926.

[3] Accompaniment to the village songs is played on various traditional instruments, the most significant of which is the kokles, a type of box zither related to the Lithuanian kanklės and other Baltic psalteries.

In the 1970s, artists like Jānis Poriķis and Valdis Muktupāvels led a revival in kokles music, which had only survived in the Courland and Lettgallia regions.

In the last hundred years, a new kind of kokles was developed, with many more strings, halftones levelers and other improvements that expand the capacities of the instrument to play not only modal music but, in another point of view, displeased more traditional musicians.

During the Soviet era, rock music became extremely popular, because it, as well as folk songs, offered a chance to rebel against the local authorities.

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.

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