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I’m in La Dèfense on a Sunday, already a slightly strange endeavor as in this, Paris’s financial district, filled with über modern skyscrapers and equally avant-garde sculptures, Sundays should be virtually empty.  But a jazz festival on the Esplanade draws an unusually large crowd, all mostly in the name of headliner, Goran Bregovic. 

Here’s a man who, if you told me a synopsis of his music (a modern Balkan composer with influences as far reaching as South Slavic, Romani, pop, polyphonic, tango, and brass band), I might be curious but skeptical. And yet, I find myself completely grooving to the unusual polka-like rhythm, I do not resist the urge to stamp my feet and clap my hands, and I start to think: folk music, a renaissance? (or at least somewhat, as Goran Bregovic has been around for quite a while).

The resonance of folk music in our current musical atmosphere is palpable if you really listen, but I guess that depends on whether you use music to activate or pacify. It made me curious about Iceland’s musical past, given the country’s extraordinary musical present.

When talking about Icelandic folk music, there are two categories under which the majority of songs, hymns and poems fall: one is kveða and the other is syngja. The first refers to a type of poem, also the generic word for poetry, and the second, syngja, meaning sing, was strongly associated with sagnadansar, or dances that accompanied the first forms of poetic songs. 

Rimur is a type of narrative vocal poem. Rimur melodies are fixed diatonic tones.  According to music author Hreinn Steingrímsson, Rimurs are standard and constructed as such:
The four-line metres are a combination of two couplets with four stressed syllables in the first line of each, and two such syllables (first and third, second and third, or third and fourth) alliterate with the first stressed syllable of the second line.

According to the website of Andri Snær Magnason, writer and general Renaissance man himself, much of Iceland’s folk music tradition was lost in the early 20th century as Iceland’s contact to the outside world, and therefore outside cultures, became more imminent. In comparison to Western European composers, Icelandic folk music had a tendency to sound primitive, and therefore “The folk music that was for sale in the stores had all been ‘fixed’ or purified to the modern sense of ‘beauty’ or ‘correct’ singing.” 

However, in the Arni Magnusson Institute, part of the University of Iceland, which preserves, researches, and publishes different Icelandic manuscripts, both medieval and modern, there were hundreds of hours of the original form of Icelandic folk music that had become so close to being lost. Magnason and Rosa Thorsteinsdottir decided to bring to light these origins of Icelandic music through the compilation CD featuring unfixed, original recordings, now available at http://www.badtaste.net. . 

There are other venues in which to explore and enjoy Icelandic folk music. The folk music festival of 2009, sponsored by the Folk Music Center, is held in the town of Siglufjörður. On the 4th of July, Sigur Ros will be taking part in the festival, and according to their website, will be performing Odin’s Raven Magic with Steindór Andersen, Páll Guðmundsson, and various Icelandic kvæðamenn (rímur chanters).

Looking for other folk music outlets? The band Funi, the Icelandic word for fire, perform traditional music from Iceland and England, representing the heritages of each member of the duo. According to the blog “I Love Icelandic Music 4ever,” their songs are played with Kantele, and the two indigenous traditional Icelandic instruments, the Langspil and the Icelandic Fidla.

As I often like to say, exploring our history helps to reflect on our present. With such an eclectic music oeuvre, explorations into Iceland’s musical past will surely garner much appreciation for the musical moment of present. 

Aina Fuller - ainafuller@gmail.com

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