Elemental music Icelandic works, with BASIL RAMSEY Iceland Music Information Centre    ITM 9-01

Music from Iceland may appear remote but takes its place as an art and as a profession as anywhere else. The Iceland Music Information Centre is active in the interests of the region's music, and has produced this record. What is more, they've ensured that it's attractively packaged, and includes a booklet in three languages. Performances are excellent in the hands of the Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra.

Jón Leifs (1899-1968) is identifiable as a composer who lived in an environmental extreme. The music speaks of it through textures spare and bleak and with language elemental and brusque [listen -- track 2, 8:00-9:00]. It therefore has a grandeur of its own without dependence on other influences. This disc contains four works for voice and orchestra, all settings of Icelandic poetry, which obviously benefits from the musical landscape of a composer steeped in the history and legends of Iceland.

The singers, professional and Icelandic, are very sensitive to this music of their homeland, and add the lustre that brings life and drama to the four 'scenes', three of which were composed shortly before Leifs' death [listen -- track 4, 2:34-3:34].

 << Music & Vision home      Recent reviews       Ignaz Friedman >>

To listen to the aural illustrations in this review, you may need to download RealNetworks' realplayer 8.

Record Box is Music & Vision's regular Wednesday series of shorter CD reviews