Speech at the Danish Ambassador's Residence in Latvia

Speech by Søren Vincents Svendsen Founder & CEO of ToneArt / PH Pianos & PH Furniture, on the Danish Constitution Day June 5 - 2025 at the Danish Ambassador's Residence in Latvia where a PH Grand Piano was center stage.

Read the full speech below.

Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends:

We are celebrating the Danish Constitution Day – and as a tradition we celebrate this lovely day also with singing and music. And we have brought a special piano for this purpose today – a PH Piano.

We all know Poul Henningsen for the PH lamps but PH also designed pianos and I will introduce the PH Grand Piano a bit later. Please let me start by putting Poul Henningsen in a context of our Constitution Day – because PH was a multi-artist and a very active voice on many public issues – he used both his voice and pen to be a sharp critic of society, an active songwriter and always a true defender of freedom.

And that’s exactly what the Danish Constitution Day is about: the fundamental individual rights of freedom, the right to free speech, our right to vote at free and fair elections, and the right to unite and associate with other people – it is about the rule of law and division of power between institutions in our society and of course the protection of individual property rights.

When we celebrate the Constitution Day, it is a reminder of free, liberal and democratic societies and we share these values in the Nordic countries – and gladly, today we can include the Baltic countries as well.

We also take these values and rights that are rooted in our Constitution as granted. However, they are not – unfortunately…

We have been resting on the peace dividend for decades and now we have to face the hard facts: this world is cruel and we are living in uncertain times and we have a war going on close to us, here in Europe – the war in Ukraine is not only an attack on a free and sovereign country but it directly attacks all the values that we are celebrating today.

Therefore, we need to arm ourselves much more – and we have to accept that hard power is totally necessary in this world – peace does come through strength in terms of defense spendings.

But we should not only rely on hard power … we should also arm ourselves in terms of what we may call soft power, in terms of spiritual, cultural and democratic values. Danish politicians clearly underlined that recently, on the day of the 80th anniversary of the end of the second WW.

Poul Henningsen talked about the importance already back in the 1930’s when dark ideologies rose across Europe. Poul Henningsen wrote many articles about the role of culture in the society and he published a book back in 1933 titled “What about the Culture”.

PH argued that culture must be a weapon and he talked explicitly about the need for a cultural conscription: that art, design, architecture, music, movies, singing and satire should actively defend democratic values. Poul Henningsen underlined that culture can not only be used as a weapon to influence and make changes but also a tool to protect a society and the values rooted in our Constitution.

Poul Henningsen strongly believed that culture – from design to theatre – could help build a democratic mindset and civic courage.

During the Nazi occupation of Denmark, PH wrote the now-iconic protest song: “Man binder os på mund og hånd” – “they tie us by mouth and hand” – and it was written at the time of the Nazi censorship, and the German forces didn’t realize that it was a strong protest against them.

However, the Danes very well understood the true meaning of the song and it was being performed and song all over the country – itunited and created cohesion and it reminds us that language and words – like culture, art and everything related – can be a form of resistance and a weapon.

And there is a direct line from this protest song of PH to “The Singing Revolution” in the Baltic countries where music and culture also became a form of resistance – a way to unite and create cohesion amongst those who wanted to regain freedom, establish rule of law and democratic institutions.

The Singing Revolution was a way to reclaim dignity, identity and hope after decades of suppression – and today Latvia is perhaps the best example of a country where music and singing is being used to create cohesion and common identity. It is a strong weapon!

Hard and soft power should go hand-in-hand, and we may also call the combination for smart power: we can achieve support for hard power when we are vigilant and fully aware of the importance of our culture, our democratic institutions and all the constitutional values.

Before concluding please let me say 2 things:

First, I’m deeply grateful to Anna, director of our Danish cultural institute here in Riga. Anna, you have such a profound knowledge about the importance of culture and soft power: you’re an inspiration.

And, thank you to you Kristaps - Kristaps you’re a young talented Latvian business owner - the owner of a workshop in the beautiful city of Kuldiga where you have succeeded bringing the most talented craftsmen together - craftsmen that are making our Danish design icons come to life, Danish cultural heritage pieces that you craft in full accordance with original design and based on real true hand-craftsmanship!

You have brought one of these pianos today - a PH Grand Piano and after this event it will be shipped to Hong Kong … This unique functional artwork and liberated design is playing on all senses in life … it is not only for the ears, it brings smiles on the lips and joy to any setting – it makes people talk, it provokes and stimulates us and it illustrates innovative, forward thinking.

That is exactly part of the force of culture, art and design … and there would definitely be many fewer conflicts in this world if there would be more PH Pianos around… perhaps we could let more PH Pianos become part of our strategy of arming ourselves.

Dear friends:

Thank you for letting me take some of your time today and we end up where I started:

We are celebrating our Danish constitution and now, the real soft power will take over: the piano music from a true Danish cultural heritage piece - the only piano symbolizing genuine solid Danish or Nordic values that we should be proud of and defend by all means.

Maestro, please play and let the music be loud enough to be heard everywhere out there where they challenge our freedom.

Let the music unite us further in our own resilience and strengthen our commitment to all those values we’re celebrating on such a lovely day.

Happy Danish Constitution Day!