For Tove Jansson, music was a foundation that ran like a red thread throughout her life, says singer and actor Emma Klingenberg, who has written a book about music in Tove Jansson’s life. 

When singer and actor Emma Klingenberg was doing research for her concert Tove Jansson the songwriter, which premiered in 2020, she was drawn into Tove Jansson’s musical world. What was supposed to be just preparation for a concert turned into a five-year deep dive into everything music-related in Tove Jansson’s life.

Music was a foundation for Tove Jansson

The result of this work has now been published, the Swedish-language book Detta är min målarsång  – Tove Jansson och musiken (“Tove and Her Music”). In the book, Klingenberg describes everything related to music in Tove’s life, from her song lyrics and texts to songs in theatre plays to the music Tove and Tuulikki bought on their travels and listened to during their parties.

According to Emma Klingenberg, music was a foundational force for Tove Jansson, something that permeated her entire life.

‘Music was there from the beginning as a natural part of her. She was musical, not in such a way that she wrote music herself, but she used her musicality in everything she did,’ says Klingenberg.

Tove Jansson’s musicality was evident in many ways – most notably a sense of rhythm in language, which Klingenberg believes was partly due to the fact that Tove, like many of her generation, read so much verse, and also rhymed herself.

What do colours sound like?

‘And of course there is also a musicality in her painting and use of colour,’ says Klingenberg, mentioning Jansson’s friend and teacher, the artist Sam Vanni, who often talked about how colours sound and resound.

In a letter to Vivica Bandler, she described herself as something of a synaesthete – someone whose senses accompany events with colours, smells, and tones:
“I have a great ability to associate events in my memory with environment, music, odours or sights. When I put on that record, I know exactly where I heard the lift stop, the doorbell ring, exactly when you stood in the hall and took me in your arms.”

When I put on that record, I know exactly where I heard the lift stop, the doorbell ring, exactly when you stood in the hall and took me in your arms.

Music = freedom

Tove Jansson played several instruments, such as the accordion, for home use, but she could not read music and did not compose music. In this way, music became a kind of sanctuary for her, where she did not have to feel pressure to perform.

“That’s why I emphasise this freedom aspect in the book. Actually, music in her life was mostly a liberating force. For her, who was so incredibly productive, I think it was really nice that she could give the music-making, to someone else. It wasn’t her job, so to speak.”

“I have to dance when there is a party”

Over time, dancing became extremely important to Tove Jansson, who loved to dance the night away both on her island and at parties. But as a young girl, she was shy and cautious and needed to find her way to dancing slowly.

In the book, Klingenberg quotes one of Tove’s letters home to her family from Paris in 1938, in which she describes how the Swedish artist Birger Carlstedt taught her a new dance during a visit to a nightclub.

“Birger taught me what you have to do – it consisted mainly of shaking yourself in a wholly improvised way, stiff little steps, “like walking on loose desert sand”, and you really have to concentrate on the music, and follow it, to make anything of it at all.”

When Tove was asked what dance had meant to her, she emphasised the value of being allowed to dance at all. She lived in a time when entertainment was forbidden during certain periods. It was forbidden, or at least inappropriate, to dance in wartime. Dancing became especially charged and meaningful, and parties and music were particularly important.

In her 1944 diary, Tove wrote about a ‘big 25-person party’ where she had a lot of fun, except when someone got nasty about her solo dance “Damn. I have to dance when there is a party.”

What does a life sound like?

In her book Detta är min målarsång, Emma Klingenberg follows Tove’s life through music.

‘I’m fascinated by the idea that you see a lifeline. What are the sounds that emerge when you fly over it, so to speak, the lifeline of Tove?’

According to Klingenberg, these include revue stars, French chansons and, of course, jazz and all the music she found exciting from different countries. And Tove’s favourite music to dance to – blues.

Listen to the music Tove and Tuulikki used to dance to on Spotify

The sound of life

Emma Klingenberg points out that the music in Tove Jansson’s life was much more than songs and records. ‘It’s also about other things, the sounds of life. The parties, the silence, Klovharun, the travelling, the voices. The sounds of childhood.

What did the Jansson family’s childhood home in Helsinki sound like?

‘When I thought about it, I realised that it was quite a noisy family. I think about the parties and what it sounded like when you walked up the stairs outside their door. It was a family where there was laughter and singing and Faffan’s [Tove’s father Viktor “Faffan Jansson“] parties and they had a piano, guitars and a balalaika.’

Live music was important in the Jansson family 

Emma Klingenberg points out that music was something Tove Jansson grew up with. ‘Music was important – you created, you met and you made it together, and often it was live music.’

For Klingenberg, it was important to have access to Tove Jansson’s early diaries.

‘It was a piece of the puzzle that was important for understanding her as an adult. The foundation on which she stood was a genuine interest in music as a child!’

The book contains several beautiful illustrations from Tove’s early diaries, including a picture of Tove playing the jazzophone.

Another beautiful illustration is of “Tove’s  tune” by Tove’s mother Signe ’Ham’ Hammarsten Jansson featuring her own lyrics to a tune by Birger Sjöberg. This was also in the Jansson family songbook and was one of the songs they used to sing out on the islands in the summers.

Tove & Tooti – a music-loving couple 

The love of Tove’s life, Tuulikki Pietilä, was a music lover of the highest calibre, and the two met at a party when they were both drawn to the grammophone. Their shared interest in music brought them much joy, including the enormous collection of cassettes and discs they amassed, which Tuulikki managed with almost scientific precision.

The collection consisted largely of their favourite music, carefully recorded in colour-coded booklets. But equally important were cassette recordings from the couple’s everyday life and travels.

‘They also recorded the sounds of life. And sometimes they probably forgot they were recording. It’s great to accompany them to clubs and parties through the cassettes. I describe it as saved time capsules, you sort of open the door and get to step inside and hear what Tooti and Tove’s jargon sounded like, how they talked to each other when they had forgotten they were recording.’

Tuulikki editer audio tapes of the films she recorded on Super 8 film from the couple’s travels together, where she also used music to accompany various events.

‘How does she intend a certain event in life to be accompanied? What music do they hear? In the book, I have as an example when they are travelling home from New York, when they have been on their round-the-world trip, to find out what music they are listening to when they are chugging across the Atlantic by boat,’ says Klingenberg.

Read more about the fantastic music collection here!

Tove’s “cheerful and indecent” music 

Another important theme in Emma Klingenberg’s book is Tove Jansson’s love songs. One category is the serious and delicate songs she wrote for Vivica Bandler and Atos Wirtanen, among others.

A completely different style is represented by a more light-hearted song that Tove saved in a plastic pocket under the title ‘Cheerful and indecent’. The song, the amusing Stora Mymmelsången (“The Great Mymmel Song”), describes what happened at ‘ghost parties’, when gay women would freely make out.

At the time Tove wrote the song, this was something that could only be done in a small circle behind closed doors, as homosexuality was still forbidden in Finland.

‘The song is below the belt in a lovely way. The fact that she herself has saved this for posterity is important. There is also that cheerful and naughty part of Tove’s life. I think she herself wants to say something with it, that she was careful that it should be saved. That you don’t take things too seriously. There is also room for that side. Even if your name is Tove Jansson,’ says Emma Klingenberg.

Read more about Tove’s love songs here!

Tove’s music as sheet music

Detta är min målarsång will be accompanied by a sister work in the near future, as Klingenberg publishes the sheet music for some of the music mentioned in the book.
‘It is very important that the music is available to everyone. People want to hear what the music sounds like and it should be heard!’

She will also publish new compositions based on some of Tove’s love songs. Listen to the first one, Regnvisa (“Rain song”) on Spotify here.

Read more about Detta är min målarsång in English here.