There should be more
selections like this. They serve to
ring the changes and in fairness the
small to middle sized companies are
delivering these collections. All
credit though to Oehms and Susanne
Kessel for collaborating over this
project. It freeboots open-mindedly
across styles.
Sigurbjörnsson
studied piano and composition
in Iceland and in the USA; latterly
with Kenneth Gaburo and Lejaren Hiller.
He also attended Darmstadt but seems
to have emerged unscathed. His opera
Grettir featured in the 2004
Bayreuth Festival. The Hans-Variationen
are dedicated to the pianist Hans
Pálsson. While not immune from
dissonance these variations move between
angularity and fracture towards Sigurbjörnsson’s
true north: a Grieg-like devotion
to folkdance and folksong. Jóhann
G. Jóhannsson is active
in the Iceland media and his Ég
er að tala um þig sings
with a modern populist sentimental
touch. Atli Ingólfsson studied
classical guitar, theory, composition
and philosophy in Iceland. The …ma
la melodia moves in dark paths
but emerges from them in a consciously
romantic troubled vein somewhere between
Grieg and Rachmaninov. Tómasson
takes us back to dissonance and
fracture with a stony vibrancy imposed
on a Ravel-like apparatus. Atli
Heimir Sveinsson studied composition
with Bernd Alois Zimmermann. He has
been a force recognised within Iceland
for his advocacy of European contemporary
serious music. His Oþur Steinsins
series comprises thirty short
pieces. No. IV is a tentative serenade
seemingly wending its way through
a mysterious landscape. Af hreinu
hjarta is a dark and very slow
waltz – very beguiling. Albumblatt
was written for Kessel and is a machine-gun
tirade of notes with a fine patina
of dissonance – minimalism with teeth.
Vienna was the scene of Urbancic’s
upbringing. His career was terminated
by Hitler’s rise to power in 1933.
He left Austria because his wife was
Jewish and found his way to Iceland
where he taught theory, piano, composition
and music history. The duet Brüderlein
komm tanz mit mir from Hänsel
und Gretel by Humperdinck is the
theme of the Caprices Mignons über
ein Kinderlied. Here the style
is more consciously innocent, elegant-clever
and, yes, Viennese. Viðar studied
piano in Reykjavík and then
in Berlin. Vittorio Giannini was her
teacher at the Juilliard (1943-5).
The Four Meditations on Icelandic
Folk Themes are popular in Iceland.
Meditation No. 1 is a folksy-dissonant
caprice while No. 4 is more
turbulently romantic, tortured and
swirling. Hallgrímsson studied
composition with Alan Bush and Peter
Maxwell Davies. He settled in Scotland
and a number of CDs of his music have
been issued. Lullaby on a Winter’s
Night is grand and cold, providing
a representation of the grievous shiver
of an Icelandic night but in an accessibly
dissonant impressionistic slow-motion
spray. Ísólfsson
studied composition with Max Reger.
He composed in the style of the golden-age
romantics. His short Impromptu
in D Minor seemingly quotes his
own Piano Concerto (has that been
recorded?) and is in his accustomed
retrospective romantic style encompassing
Schumann, Liszt and Brahms. Sveinbjörnsson
is the oldest composer represented.
His Vikivaki refers to a 17th
century wild Icelandic dance. So wild
was it that it was banned by the Church.
In Sveinbjörnsson’s case the
dance is tricked out with the usual
apparatus of romanticism although
more Brahms-Liszt than anything from
later generations. Egilsson,
a double-bassist, was brought to the
United States by Barbirolli to play
with the Houston Symphony. He became
much in demand in the Hollywood studio
orchestras. Rather like the Hallgrímsson
piece his Borealis conveys
an impressive sound-portrait of the
Icelandic winter night and the supernatural
shifting melting colours of the aurora
borealis – a phenomenon which also
attracted Tubin in his Sixth Symphony.
Rather like Tubin the music that emerges
has a dangerous edge and a sense of
awe and latent catastrophe. Leifs
is well known from his Bis discs.
He found inspiration and material
in folk songs, the "Rímur"
and the medieval "Tvisöngur".
Rímnadanslög are
dances based on the Rímur,
a rhyming tradition delivered in something
approaching sprechgesang. The
three pieces from op. 11 sound like
the equivalent folk-inflected pieces
by Grieg and by later generations.
They are not immune from lissom sentiment
and chiming innocence. There are none
of Leifs’ accustomed coruscations
or explosions. Björk Guðmundsdóttir
– better known as Björk – is
well known internationally. Leon
Milo, who works with Kessel
in the piano-duo "Pianowaves"
has transcribed Björk’s song
I Miss You, for piano
and electronics. The result is a chiming,
ear-caressing fantasy which ripples
and tickles in a deliciously awkward
progress. It forms a delightful and
inventively dissonant encore cut about
with minimalist rhythmic excitements.
A provocative, accessible,
well annotated and far from facile
anthology. It would be good to hear
further examples and in particular
to catch up with the more extended
and ambitious works of Ísólfsson,
Milo and Sveinbjörnsson.
Rob Barnett
Susanne Kessel (piano) 
