Music Chat: The Musical Cataclysms of Jón Leifs
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Iceland's greatest composer, Jón Leifs created the most powerful and graphic musical depictions of nature's grandeur and fury, evoking erupting volcanos, geysers, waterfalls, and drifting ice floes. But his personal idiom, based on the primal rhythms and harmonies of Icelandic folk music, was capable of much more than just that. Let's take a closer look. Musical Examples courtesy of BIS and Ondine Records.

A short masterpiece from the Icelandic composer Jón Leifs! One of the few of Iceland. He has written four such orchestral pieces, all relatively short, rumbly and nature-derived:

  • Hekla, for the volcano Hekla in Iceland
  • Geysir, for, well, Geysir! The thing that shoots water from the ground hindreds of meters up.
  • Hafis, which means drift ice
  • Dettifoss, a waterfall in Iceland and the second most powerful in Europe, after the Rhine falls.

They are all very loud, grandiose and powerful pieces, with Hekla being the loudest in my opinion. It has musical elements derived from Norse music tradition and interesting instrument choices, like an anvil banged by hammers or literal rocks taken from Hekla itself! Jón Leifs would be especially protective of that reportedly. Check out this video for an explanation of all the pieces:

https://vid.puffyan.us/watch?v=HNdutACsIT8