Latvia

Musical practices in the Lutheran and Roman Catholic parts of Latvia are much the same, yet major differences in musical style and repertoire exist between Latgale and the rest of the country. On the whole, traditional singing is better preserved in Latgale and southwestern Kurzeme. Singing in rural Latvia is mostly women's domain. Communal singing is characteristic for calendar and family celebrations and joint field labor. Music for Latvian flutes is purely instrumental, rather than instrumental versions of vocal music. The most characteristic and significant instrument in Latvian traditional music is the kokles, a board zither with five to twelve strings. Cultivating the renewed ethnic music traditions in the 1980s was allied to the national resistance movement, opposing Soviet totalitarianism and russification. Extensive systematic collection of Latvian folk songs and instrumental melodies started in the 1870s.