Born in Hamburg, Fredrik Pacius was a pupil of Spohr and Hauptmann in Kassel. He made his early career as a violinist, a capacity in which he joined the Swedish Court Orchestra in Stockholm in 1828. In 1834 he became director of music at Helsinki University, working in Finland as a violinist, composer and conductor, and playing an active part in Finnish musical life.

Operas
The first opera of Pacius, Kung Karls jakt (‘The Hunt of King Charles’), with a Swedish text but now often sung in a Finnish translation, was the first such work to be written in Finland. It was followed by the fairy-tale opera Prinsessan av Cypern (‘Princess of Cyprus’) and the two-act Die Loreley.

Vocal and Instrumental Music
Other works by Pacius include songs, notably the patriotic Suomen-laula (‘Song of Finland’) and Vårt land (‘Our Country’), with texts by Runeberg. His instrumental music includes a Violin Concerto, a String Quartet and one movement of a symphony.

Traditional works refer to music which was probably collectively composed by a group of people, normally without formal music training, and passed on orally from one generation to the next. The exact origin of works regarded as ‘traditional’ is often unknown and is usually undocumented/unpublished in manuscripts/sheet music dating from the time of composition, which in turn is often not precisely known. This particularly refers to folk, ethnic, indigenous or native music, such as folk-songs and folk-dances, which are sometimes referred to as ‘world music’.