When Modernism Came to Iceland
My main research project for the last year and a half has been analyzing the rise of modernism in Icelandic music in the 1950s and 60s. This was a momentous time on the Icelandic music scene, which was growing increasingly more professional with both perfomers and composers returning from studies abroad. Among these were several that would become the leading composers of their generation, all of whom wrote music that can to some degree be described as modernist: Magnús Blöndal Jóhannsson, Jón Nordal, Fjölnir Stefánsson, Jón S. Jónsson, Leifur Þórarinsson, Atli Heimir Sveinsson and Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson.
As they returned home from their studies, one by one in the late 1950s and early 60s, these composers saw the need for an organization that would promote new and progressive music in performances by young and enthusiastic players. In 1959, the collective Musica Nova was founded, intended as a platform for new Icelandic works as well as current music from abroad. Unsurprisingly, this was a men’s group – the only serious “classical” woman composer in Iceland at this time was Jórunn Viðar, who was decidedly anti-modernist even though she did appear as a pianist at a couple of Musica Nova’s concerts. While the group’s first program contained rather
traditional fare, the second one included several novelties, such as the first electronic work written by an Icelander, Electronic study for woodwinds, piano, and tape by Magnús Blöndal Jóhannsson. To say that this was poorly received is an understatement. One conservative critic deplored that the evening had consisted of “cruel atomic music almost from beginning to end, and the climax was Jóhannson’s electronic atom-bomb, which came close to rupturing the eardrums of the poor audience.” This set the tone for the reception of new music in the next decade. The older generation of Icelandic critics was quite unanimous in their anti-modernist stance, categorically objecting to any form of electronic or serial music. One critic, writing after the first performance in Iceland of Schoenberg’s Phantasy for violin and piano in 1961 wrote: “I often felt like someone was torturing a cat in the distance.”
Convincing local audiences of the value of such music was an uphill battle. In 1963, Jóhannsson’s Sonorities was given its first performance, by fellow composer Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson. This was greeted with scepticism, even by those who were, in general, sympathetic towards new music. Iceland’s leading pianist at the time, Rögnvaldur Sigurjónsson, reviewed the work for one of the local newspapers and found fault with virtually everything. He said it was doubtful whether this could be considered the work of a “serious composer,” and described the music itself as “some of the most outrageous twaddle that has been heard here, which is saying a lot.”
New currents of avant-garde music were also brought to Iceland by Atli Heimir Sveinsson. His formal debut as a composer came at a Musica Nova concert in March 1963 where his recent work Hlými was given its Icelandic premiére, a work of around 20 minutes duration and composed for 11 instruments. According to the composer’s description, the ordering of the musical material was “both compressed and expanded, that is, saying as much as possible in as short a time as possible, and saying as little as possible in as long a time possible.” Yet it was the use of unusual percussion instruments that was the work’s true novelty, at least as far as the local press was concerned. One news report of the concert included the following description:
“Those who sat to the right of the stage soon noticed that a bucket had been placed on the brink, where it was least noticable. Also visible were two whisky bottles in plastic bags, placed on a table next to the bucket. There were some suspicious looks in the audience, and it did in fact turn out that both bottles and bucket would play a role in the performance. As the work was about to begin, the percussionist grabbed the bucket and placed it on the table, reached for one of the bottles and placed it next to the bucket, but placed the other one under the table. At the right moment the conductor signalled, the percussionist reached for a claw hammer and smashed the bottle into the bucket. This is said to be practiced quite a bit in modern music, the breaking of bottles and such, but it is our hope that no one left this otherwise enjoyable concert incensed.”
While critics this time were amused rather than offended, the National Radio nevertheless declined to record Hlými, and Iceland’s largest newspaper went out of its way to poke fun at the young composer, with both a comic strip and a satirical poem devoted to his absurd opus 1. The anonymous poet even insinuates that the composer of such ridiculous music may have a drinking problem: “I have enough bottles in my cellar at home to last me for at least 10 symphonies,” it says at the end.
The fierce debates on modern music reached something of a culmination with two events in May
1965, only two weeks apart. At the start of the month, the National Radio devoted a full hour to a programme on “the merits of electronic music,” as it was called, inviting composers Sveinsson and Sigurbjörnsson to defend the whole idea of electronic music against two of the town’s leading conservative critics, Jón Þórarinsson, a former pupil of Paul Hindemith, who reviewed concerts for the right-wing Morgunblaðið, and Björn Franzson, the one who had called Jóhannson’s Electronic study an “atomic bomb” three years earlier. Sadly, the broadcast tape no longer exists, but we do have photographs as well as two newspaper reports which give some idea of the discussion; at the start of the program, Stockhausen’s Studie II was played, after which the young composers tried to defend the possibilities inherent in such music, while Franzson repeated his claim that all electronic music reminded him of a poorly tuned radio.
Of all the Musica Nova concerts, the one that unleashed the greatest amount of vitriol was one arranged by Sveinsson only two weeks later, where he presented in Reykjavík his former classmate from Darmstadt, the Korean-American fluxus artist Nam June Paik, along with cellist Charlotte Moorman. The two artists were commencing on a European tour and made a brief stop in Iceland. The concert consisted of works that featured regularly on their programs but were bound to divide
opinion, such as Cage’s 26'1.1499", with her own addition, which Cage did not approve of, where she used the half-naked Paik as a “human cello,” and Paik’s own Variations on a Theme of Saint-Saëns, in which Moorman, after playing a few bars of The Swan, put down her cello, walked over to a large oil drum filled with water, lowered herself into the water until she completely submerged, then returned to her seat to finish The Swan. Not surprisingly, this concert became the scandal of the season; many of the audience walked out and all those involved were roundly condemned by critics. In fact, the concert provoked such outrage that a few days later, the board of Musica Nova, whose president at the time was Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson, issued a public apology for having organized the event at all.
The board began by pointing out that, -- “all performers, who have appeared at the group’s concerts in past years have
a) been passing through Reykjavík in the first place
b) they have presented foreign recommendations (such as newspaper reviews) in support of their artistic capabilities
c) individuals within the group have recommended them on their own responsibility.
--- Regarding the latest visit, the board wishes to make clear
a) that these people were passing by anyway
b) that they have appeared in events sponsored by similar organizations in neighboring countries
c) that newspaper reviews emphasized Ms. Moorman’s talent as an interpreter of the finest modern music.
--- It should be unnecessary to point out that the behaviour of our latest “guests” had, as it turned out, absolutely nothing to do with the goals of our association, and that it was, in fact, an unforeseeable accident.“
After such a strongly worded statement, conservative critics felt vindicated in their rejection of modern music; an anonymous writer in one paper found that the furor around Musica Nova “serves them well, these electronic radio-distortion-pipers, who have been given far too much attention in our cultural life.” Sveinsson, however, was furious that his colleagues should disavow the entire event so quickly and decisively. This was the eighteenth program put on by Musica Nova, and for a while it seemed as if the group might not survive the scandal. Attendance dropped sharply, but Musica Nova continued to put on concerts until 1973, a total of 35 programs that played a crucial role in introducing new music to local audiences.
Comments