Writing Lilja: a Glance at Icelandic Music and Spirit J

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Writing Lilja: a Glance at Icelandic Music and Spirit J View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Lehigh University: Lehigh Preserve Lehigh University Lehigh Preserve Post-crash Iceland: opportunity, risk and reform Perspectives on Business and Economics 1-1-2011 Writing Lilja: A Glance at Icelandic Music and Spirit J. Casey Rule Lehigh University Follow this and additional works at: http://preserve.lehigh.edu/perspectives-v29 Recommended Citation Rule, J. Casey, "Writing Lilja: A Glance at Icelandic Music and Spirit" (2011). Post-crash Iceland: opportunity, risk and reform. Paper 13. http://preserve.lehigh.edu/perspectives-v29/13 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Perspectives on Business and Economics at Lehigh Preserve. It has been accepted for inclusion in Post-crash Iceland: opportunity, risk and reform by an authorized administrator of Lehigh Preserve. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WRITING LILJA: A GLANCE AT ICELANDIC MUSIC AND SPIRIT J. Casey Rule My cOntributiOn tO this jOurnal is rather aesthetic that is in nO way singularly Or sim - Out Of the Ordinary: instead Of writing a tradi - ply defined. MOre impOrtantly, the prOduct tiOnal article, I was asked tO cOmpOse a piece wOuld be inescapably inauthentic. Taking this Of music. As an aspiring cOmpOser, this was an apprOach wOuld be like standing in a fOrest OppOrtunity I cOuld nOt turn dOwn; hOwever, and explaining tO sOmeOne what a tree is by it presented sOme immediate challenges. PrOb - drawing a picture Of it. Naturally, the pieces that ably the mOst impOrtant and certainly the mOst are mOst infOrmative Of Icelandic music are vexing Of these was deciding hOw I cOuld actual pieces Of Icelandic music. Trying tO sum - apprOach this prOject in a way that was apprO - marize a cOuntry’s musical traditiOn in a 15- priate fOr this particular publicatiOn. While I minute cOmpOsitiOn wOuld be artistically mean - certainly believe in the expressive pOwer Of ingless. music, I dO nOt pretend that there is nO differ - As I spent mOre and mOre time studying ence between an Orchestral piece and an aca - this traditiOn and writing this Orchestra piece, demic article. My gOal, therefOre, was tO cre - my directiOn changed cOnsiderably. Initially, I ate a cOmpOsitiOn that was richly infOrmed by saw this prOject primarily as a challenge tO prO - my study Of the Icelandic musical traditiOn. duce a cOmpOsitiOn that was as infOrmative My initial instinct was tO cOmpOse a piece abOut my study Of Icelandic music as if I were that was illustrative Of Icelandic music, using writing an article. In the end, hOwever, I real - traditiOnal Icelandic techniques and cOnven - ized that I had been given the OppOrtunity tO tiOns tO demOnstrate a distilled representatiOn express what I cannOt necessarily say in wOrds. Of “Icelandic style.” It did nOt take lOng fOr As such, this cOmpOsitiOn is nOt intended tO me tO realize that this was a senseless aim. TO be a survey Of Icelandic music nOr is it intended attempt tO write in the style Of Icelandic music tO be a representatiOn Of Icelandic style. It is, wOuld require a vast Over-simplificatiOn Of an simply, One student’s reactiOn tO One shOrt 125 year Of learning abOut this largely unknOwn and After the RefOrmatiOn in the sixteenth cen - underappreciated traditiOn. tury, Iceland was cOnverted frOm CathOlicism tO Lutheranism. This ushered in a new musical Iceland’s Musical Tradition style: the German prOtestant hymn. At first, the hymns sung in Iceland were simply translated My first gOal fOr this piece was tO express German hymns, but the style was later devel - sOmething abOut Icelandic music itself; hOw - Oped by Icelanders whO gave it a uniquely Ice - ever, I did nOt want tO simply mimic the music landic sOund, Often implementing the Lydian I heard. Instead, I strOve tO identify what makes mOde and unusual vOicing in parallel fifths Icelandic music “Icelandic” and find a new and augmented fOurths. (CrOnshaw, p. 168) way tO harness these aesthetics in my Own piece. Hallgrímur PéturssOn, a seventeenth-century FOr me, the quality that mOst identifies Ice - minister after whOm the icOnic Reykjavík chapel landic music and, in many ways, Icelandic Hallgrímskirkja is named, is prObably the mOst culture On the whOle, is the cOmbinatiOn Of well knOwn cOntributOr tO the Icelandic seemingly incOngruent and Often anachrOnistic hymnOdy. traditiOns. Of cOurse, this is nOt unique tO Ice - In the late nineteenth century, Iceland land; the histOry Of every culture includes nOt began tO experience a new style Of music: EurO - Only the gradual evOlutiOn Of practices but pean ROmanticism. At this time, Iceland was alsO the synthesis at the interfaces Of distinct alsO starting tO prOduce its first prOfessiOnal custOms. HOwever, this phenOmenOn is partic - cOmpOsers, many Of whOm studied cOmpOsitiOn ularly prOnOunced in Icelandic music. abrOad and brOught the styles and techniques The reasOn fOr this is largely geOgraphical. they learned back tO their native cOuntry. Svein - Iceland is an island hundreds Of miles frOm björn SveinbjörnssOn was the first Icelander mainland EurOpe and was, fOr mOst Of its his - tO seek an internatiOnal career as a cOmpOser. tOry, relatively pOOr, sparsely inhabited, and (White, p. 303) While studying divinity, he cOmparatively free frOm Outside influence. FOr was persuaded by the NOrwegian cOmpOser-viO - mOst Of the last millennium, it was nOt linist JOhan Svendsen tO study music in COpen - immersed in EurOpean culture tO the extent the hagen and later in Leipzig with Carl Reinecke. cOuntries Of mainland EurOpe were but, instead, Sveinbjörn went On tO cOmpOse Lofsöngur , Ice - was expOsed tO discrete crOss-sectiOns Of the cul - land’s natiOnal anthem, and was the first cOm - tural develOpment Occurring in EurOpe. pOser tO be given a pensiOn fOr cOmpOsitiOn Because Of this, Iceland saw the interactiOn Of by the Icelandic parliament. musical styles that were separated by cen - The early twentieth century in Iceland saw turies in mainland EurOpe. an increasing number Of Icelandic cOmpOsers, such as Þórarinn JónssOn and Páll ÍsólfssOn, the A Brief History first rectOr Of the Reykjavík COnservatOry Of Music, fOunded in 1930. PrObably the best- When the NOrse peOple arrived in Ice - knOwn and arguably the first internatiOnally sig - land in the ninth century, they brOught with nificant Icelandic cOmpOser is JOn Leifs, whO in them slaves, mainly Of Celtic Origin. While few 1928 helped fOund the UniOn Of Icelandic Artists sOurces exist regarding this first music Of Ice - and fOunded the Icelandic COmpOsers UniOn land, it seems likely that this early music had in 1945. He is knOwn fOr incOrpOrating fOlk bOth Celtic and Scandinavian influences. music and elements Of Other early Icelandic In 1000 A.D., Althingi, Iceland’s parlia - music intO his cOmpOsitiOns. ment, Officially adOpted Christianity as the ThrOughOut the beginning Of the twenti - natiOnal religiOn. With Christianity came the eth century, as Iceland became less and less cul - traditiOn Of GregOrian chant. In additiOn, turally isOlated, the music Of Iceland began tO organum , an early fOrm Of pOlyphOny that devel - cOnfOrm mOre and mOre tO external aesthet - Oped Out Of GregOrian chant, was intrOduced ics. When the radiO arrived in 1930, the influ - tO Iceland nO mOre than a century after it ence Of Outside music was nO lOnger inhibited. appeared in mainland EurOpe in the ninth and With the radiO came access tO pOp and rOck, tenth centuries. styles that fused with indigenOus music tO 126 evOlve intO the vibrant Icelandic music scene Of Recently, rímur has fOund its way intO the tOday. mainstream Icelandic music scene as well. Preservation of Folk Tradition Steindór Andersen, a fishing bOat captain, has becOme One Of the mOst well-knOwn perfOrm - Icelandic culture is knOwn fOr its preser - ers Of rímur. In 2001, he cOllabOrated with vatiOn Of traditiOn, in cOntrast tO the relative pOpular Icelandic pOst-rOck band Sigur Rós in dynamism Of mainland EurOpean culture. One an album called Rímur , which features Steindór Of the mOst cited examples Of this is the devel - Andersen singing these traditiOnal chants. 1 Opment Of the Icelandic language. This language AnOther intriguing example Of a preserved is Of particular interest tO linguists in that it has Icelandic fOrm is tvísöngur , which translates undergOne remarkably little change in hundreds as “twin-sOng.” Tvísöngur is a derivate Of Of years; it is, in fact, the clOsest spOken lan - medieval Organum, the first step in Western guage tO the Old NOrse Of the Vikings. (Bern - music frOm unisOn tO pOlyphOny tO, eventually, harðssOn) In the same way, Iceland has pre - the harmOny that mOdern ears nOw hear as served many Of the musical traditiOns that have intrinsic tO all tOnal music. TOday, this medieval influenced the cOuntry thrOughOut its histOry. pOlyphOny lives On in Icelandic tvísöngur, which As a result, Icelandic music nOw has clearly cOntinues tO be taught in cOntempOrary class - traceable qualities Of musical traditiOns that rOOms. As a result, present-day Icelanders are span a millennium in their Origin. still familiar with this medieval aesthetic, which PrObably the best example Of the preserva - the rest Of Western music has since assigned tiOn Of Icelandic musical technique is rímur tO antiquity. FOr this reasOn, tvísöngur is Of par - (rhymes)—Iceland’s traditiOnal epic pOetry that ticular interest tO musicOlOgists studying the was musically chanted and One Of the mOst well- develOpment Of early Organum. (White, p. 297) knOwn and mOst icOnic musical fOrms Of Ice - land. Rímur is unique in that it had gOne rela - Expressing History in Music tively unchanged and unchallenged as the dOm - inant musical fOrm in Iceland frOm as early as After examining Iceland’s musical histOry, the fOurteenth century thrOugh the nineteenth there were twO aspects Of Icelandic music that century, when pOets such as Jónas Hallgríms - I felt were necessary tO represent in my piece: sOn intrOduced fOreign meters tO Icelandic the initial stasis and later persistence Of early pOetry, ushering in a new style Of Icelandic Icelandic musical fOrms and the fusiOn Of var - ROmanticism.
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