There are two major traditions of traditional music in Finland, the Kalevalaic music and the Pelimanni music. The most important form in the Kalevalic music is called rune chanting. It mostly tells stories about the heroes of the Kalevala like Väinämöinen. The Pelimanni music is a version of the Nordic folk dance music usually played on fiddle, accordions, harmonium, and clarinet.
An important traditional instrument in Finland is the kantele, a special version of a chordophone. In the story of the Kalevala Väinämöinen creates the first kantele using the jawbone of a giant pike and all animals come out of the forest to listen to him playing it.
In the 20th century influences of jazz and foxtrott let to Finnish forms of dance music like Humppa and Jenkka.

Since the 1930ies Iskelmä enjoys great popularity. It´s a word for a light popular song like the German "Schlager". Well-known performers are a.o. Eino Grön, Tapani Kansa, and Jari Sillanpää.

Very popular in Finland is also the Finnish Tango. In contrast to the Argentinian Tango it is almost exclusively performed in minor keys. The Tango came to Finland in the 1910s by travelling musicians and the central themes are love, sorrow, and nature.

The first Finnish opera, "Kaarle-kuninkaan metsästys (The Hunt of King Charles)" was composed from Fredrik Pacius in 1852. Pacius also wrote the music of the national anthem "Maamme" (Our Land).
One internationally well-know Finnish composer is Jean Sibelius, who composed the "Finlandia" in 1899, which played an important role in the fight for independence.
In 1911 the soprano Aino Ackté, who was the first international star of the Finnish opera scence founded the Domestic Opera and in the following year she started a festival in Savonlinna, which was the forerunner of the Savonlinna Opera Festival that came into being in the 1960ies.

Besides the varied opera scene the contrary extreme is also very common in Finland, especially hard rock enjoys great popularity there and some of the best known metal bands come from Finland, among them Nightwish, Sonata Arctica, HIM, Waltari, and Apocalyptica.

The Finnish works of literture include both Finnish and Swedish ones. The first texts written in Finnish language are from Mikael Agricola, who is also called the "father of Finnish language" (16th century).
In 1835 the first version of the Kalevala written by Elias Lönnrot was published. Lönnrot collected ancient folk poems and chants during his travels through Eastern Karelia. Today the Kalevala is the Finnish national epic and the basis of Finnish literature.
With his novel "Seitsemän veljestä" (Seven Brothers, 1870) Aleksis Kivi introduced the era of modern Finnish literature. In 1939 Frans Eemil Sillanpää won the Nobel Prize of Literature. The main theme of his novels is the country´s peasantry and their relationship with is the country´s peasantry and their relationship with nature.

A very substantial part of Finnish culture is the sauna, of course. There´s an average of one sauna per household. For the Finns the sauna is a place for physical and mental relaxation as well as for social gatherings.
In winter the more hardy persons practise ice swimming after a visit in the sauna. They cut a hole in the ice and take a bath in the water that has a temperature of about 1-4 °C.