We hear a lot these days of the disastrous collapse of Iceland’s banking and business sectors but little or nothing about that nation’s cultural heritage. After my first sample I am here to tell you that it is right up there with Icelandic liquidity management.
The audience at the Borromini Sacristy of Sant’Agnese in Agone, Rome, were treated last night to a recital by Nina Margrét Grìmsdòttìr featuring works by Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson and Pàll Isòlfsson. These are composers whose work has largely, and rightly, been overlooked.
The nearest I can get to describing the work of Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson (so good they named him twice!) is that it seemed like a random selection of the national anthems of West African nations, one moment grandiloquent, at times sonorous, at times jocular, as if three Olympic athletes had come joint first and the band had a go at playing the various themes concurrently.
Pàll Isòlfsson was along the same lines but for my money seemed to offer a new layer of randomness, almost Maoist in its insistence that you never get used to one theme, that you are projected into a new layer of horror before you have understood what’s going on. Grìmsdòttìr pounded the keyboard valiantly but you had the feeling she had abandoned all hope.
I recommend Icelandic music to you: an experience on a par with a visit to their frozen food shop.
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