Only a week till me and Sara go home to Iceland for our Christmas holiday. We are very excited but try to remain calm. Then we will, like hopefully everyone else, have some time to relax and I am planing to read the book I just bought "Three questions for sixty-five composers" by Balint Andras Varga.
Yesterday I finished my last big assignment at Guildhall. So I´ve somewhat got one foot in the holiday door, except for a couple of competition deadlines.
Each of us, the 4 1st year Mmus Composers, must do a 45 min presentation on something to do with our studies. I decided to do mine yesterday on the Icelandic Composer Jón Leifs, focusing on the first part of his live, his studies on the Icelandic folk song and his piece Hekla op.52 (1961) - Listen below.
I wont outline my whole presentation here but I found some interesting sounds/music/texts you might enjoy.
Like this statement of Sigurður Nordal, 20th century scholar, of the Icelandic rímur or chanting.
• “Icelandic rímur are probably the most absurd example of literary conservatism that has ever been noted. It can be said that they remain unchanged for five whole centuries although everything around them changes. And although they frequently have little poetic value and sometimes even border on complete tastelessness, they have demonstrated with their tenacity that they satisfy the needs of the nation peculiarly well.” –Sigurður Nordal (reference)
Strange but true. Next is a loosely translated text (by me) from Jón Leifs:
•“The Icelandic folk song is, naturally, strongly influenced by the nature of Iceland and the woe's the nation has been struck with through the centuries. Deep seriousness and toughness surrounds each performance. Merrymaking is known to rear it's head but is then presented in a quite rugged manner and with a cold laughter…” – Jón Leifs
Icelandic:
Eðlilega hefir andi íslenzkra þjóðlaga mótast af náttúru landsins og hörmungum þeim, sem á þjóðinni dundu. Djúpa alvöru flytja lögin og hrikaleik og harðneskju meiri en nokkur önnur þjóðlög. Þar er oft sem bitið sje á jaxl og tönnum gníst gegn örlögunum. Gleðskapar verður einnig vart, en þá lendir oft í harðgerðum (groteskum) gáska og köldum hlátri. Ríkir þar ramíslenzkur andi og sá norrænasti. Trúarauðmýkt og þokuþunglyndi má einnig finna, en oftast býr þar undir hulin harðneskja. Fagurt tákn þess að örlögin fá ekki bugað Íslendinga. (reference)
That is true. Most of the time the old folk songs sound beautiful, but if you look closer it´s mostly about ravens starving and having no corpse to feed on, or mothers killing their babies.
Ravens:
Mothers (lyrics found on youtube site: english and icelandic):
Most of the time you forget that though and just enjoy the music.
Here is a special treat. A folk song named Sjö sinnum það sagt er mér, ("I´m told seven times"). It´s somewhat of a singing-hurdel or challenge. You have to try to sing the song 7 times. Each time begining on the note the last "cycle" ended on. So it´s transposed up a perfect 4th each time as you can see (new cycle starts in line 3).
Last but not least, Jón´s piece Hekla op.52, a crasy piece, somewhat based on our folk song tradition. Those influences can be heard most clearly in the 1st section. This piece features 2 percussion ensambles, one on-stage and the other off-stage. E.g. chains, rocks & canons mixed with more traditional percussion make this soundscape different that most. The 2 piccolos, strong brass and a church organ also do their parts.
Hekla is a volcano in Iceland, you can see it on this map:
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