Tove Jansson's Moomin Music turns into a popular hit in Japan

The Moomin music catalog, with lyrics by its author - Finnish-Swedish novelist and painter Tove Jansson (1914-2001) - is breaking into the worldwide market as the Moomin music of primary choice. An overwhelming majority of Moomin fans now prefer the theater based music from the 1950s and 1960s to any other versions. This song catalog was released in its entirety after Tove Jansson's death.

Moomin Voices is a little unusual but very modern way to illustrate these deep thinking fairy-tale characters. Instead of the usual children's pop music genre, these albums are filled with Scandinavian ethnic vocal sounds and a jazz rhythm. The songs were composed by Jansson, and Erna Tauro (1916-1993) who was a Helsinki-based folkloric songwriter and pianist. The songs are all directly related to the characters themselves, or events in the stories, and complement the eight novels, comic books and cartoons superbly. In a recent TV show in Finland, Finnish people expressed their enthusiasm about the style on Moomin Voices: "I can imagine Moominpappa write his memoirs only when listening to jazz. Therefore it is natural that the Moomin music also reflects this style."

Tove Jansson's Moomin music catalog is - in addition to Scandinavia - extremely popular in Japan. This is partly due to the immense popularity of the Moomins, with millions of devoted fans, but also because of Japanese affinity for quality jazz. Vocalists Johanna Grüssner, Mirja Makela and Eeppi Ursin are terrific representatives not only for a high level of Scandinavian vocal style, but also as exemplary voices of the Moomins. If you haven't heard this album yet, now it's the time.