VIOLA TURPEINEN: Vingelska / Standard / 1940s

Описание: Viola Irene Turpeinen was a Finnish-American accordionist born on November 15, 1909, in Champion, MI, where her mother, Signe Viitala, was also born in 1892. Her father, Albert (Waldemar) Turpeinen, was a miner, born in the central Finnish town of Kivijärvi. The family moved to Iron River where, at the age of fourteen, Viola began to play accordion. In 1926 she became a student of violin and banjo player, John Rosendahl, who together with Turpeinen and accordionist Sylvia Polso formed a touring trio. In both Chicago and New York, Turpeinen and Rosendahl recorded two dozen songs for Columbia and Victor in 1928 and 1929, with Sylvia Polso joining them for a NYC session in 1931.

When John Rosendahl in died 1932, Turpeinen joined forces with accordionist Antti Kosola and drummer/trumpeter William Syrjälä, whom Viola married in 1933. The couple performed and recorded together during the 1930s and 40s, and Viola made her last studio recordings for Standard in 1952. William and Viola then moved to Lake Worth, FL, where she passed away from cancer on December 26, 1958, at the age of 49.

Viola was the first female accordionist to record solo, and moved Antti Syrjäniemi to write and record the tribute “Viola Turpeinen Tanssit Kiipillä” (“Viola Turpeinen's dance on Cape Ann”) in 1929. Syrjäniemi was accompanied on the recording by fellow Finn, Willy Larsen, whose dramatically accented downbeat echoes that of Viola. An admirer wrote of her, “She was a beautiful woman with blue Finnish eyes and light brown hair. She wore colorful dresses and often had a flower in her hair when she played. Her name VIOLA was boldly embroidered on her piano accordion. Her repertoire consisted mostly of Finnish dance music, but she also played Italian virtuoso accordion pieces and arrangements of classical music. Her own favorite was the overture from Rossini's "The Barber of Seville."

[Vingelska – schottis, Viola Turpeinen, Standard 45-167 (F-5062), recorded late 1940s, matrix 45-902]
The flip side of this disk is Ulla's Hambo:    • VIOLA TURPEINEN: Ulla's Hambo / Standard /...  
Polka Playlist:    • Polka Time