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Great Performances - Season 53 Episode 16 - Now Hear This – “The Iceland Sound
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00:04I'm Scott Yu, coming up on Great Performances.
00:09Iceland, it's so incredible here.
00:12It is.
00:13With a tiny population.
00:15There are 400,000 people here.
00:17400,000, just hit.
00:18Just hit.
00:19Iceland produces some of the best music and composers in the world.
00:24Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
00:25How do they do it?
00:29I'd explore Iceland's amazing landscapes.
00:32So, this is the cone of a volcano that went off.
00:39And modern architecture.
00:43And traditions.
00:45This is the center place of Icelandic culture through centuries.
00:49It's really small in here.
00:52And, of course, food.
00:56Oh, my God.
00:58To find out how this brilliant,
01:01sunlit,
01:03rainy,
01:05volcanic,
01:06land of extremes,
01:07creates a people overflowing with music.
01:11Come with me on the next Now Hear This
01:14to unravel the mystery of the Iceland sound.
01:22Major funding for Great Performances is provided by...
01:30And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
01:39I went to Iceland to find out why this tiny country is so prolific in music.
01:45But I began with a trip down into a volcano.
01:51To get there, I had to cross a long lava field with the Cantok chorus and our guide, Jonas Birgesen.
01:59First stop, a cabin at base camp.
02:08Why is Iceland such fertile ground for art and culture?
02:13I mean, per capita, it's got to be a world leader, right?
02:17I mean, Iceland, I'm told, released about 500 albums last year, which is quite a bit for the country.
02:23Almost two a day.
02:25Yeah, yeah.
02:25There are 400,000 people here.
02:27400,000, just hit.
02:28Just hit.
02:28Yeah.
02:29That's one every 800 people.
02:31Per year.
02:32Yeah.
02:33So is everybody an artist here?
02:35I mean, that seems like it's almost normal here.
02:37I like to believe kinda.
02:40Yeah.
02:41I mean, if you look at Iceland's history, Iceland has always been riddled with music, singing, performances.
02:47Nobody visited us for centuries.
02:49Yeah.
02:50So we were basically just trying to, yeah, entertain ourselves over long winters and dark nights.
02:55Yeah.
02:56In my opinion as well, I mean, Iceland having being a very kind of small, close-knit society,
03:00if you want to release a single, if you want to make an album, you kind of have the feeling
03:07that you can always call someone.
03:08You are always one phone call away from someone to work with you.
03:11To help you and help you out.
03:12And everybody also believes that they can.
03:15It's not a passive waiting until something works out.
03:17It's a, do the first thing that comes to mind and it'll work out somehow.
03:21We are doers.
03:22That's awesome.
03:23We're doers in Iceland.
03:24Yeah.
03:25Are you guys going to sing something?
03:26Yeah, we can do that.
03:27Since we're going to be going underground, we could sing a song about a man who's already underground.
03:32He's in the grave.
03:33It's called in Icelandic grafskrift, which means epitaph.
03:37And it says here in the ground lies Simon du Clemensson and it's talking about...
03:41When he was born, who he was married to, and then his dream, right, of becoming a knight.
03:47He was not a knight.
03:49He was a farmer.
03:50But he wanted to be a knight.
03:52He had big dreams.
03:53Yeah.
03:54Typical Icelandic way of going for it.
03:56It was farmer or knight on his tombstone.
04:01Knight, right?
04:03So he lived a farmer, but he died a knight.
04:04Yeah.
04:05Let's hear it.
04:05So let's honor his memory.
04:07Yeah.
04:09Let's hear it.
04:20소�director
04:46We'll get back to the volcano.
04:48For now, I wanted to take in more of Iceland's legendary landscapes.
04:52So I went to the south coast where Efi Ejolfsson builds instruments of an unusual material.
04:58So this was a lava flow.
05:00Yeah.
05:01And it ends here because it hit the water.
05:03Yeah.
05:17With us was Jofrider Akastutter, but her artist name is easier for me to say, JFDR.
05:29So Efi, here's your driftwood.
05:32Yes.
05:33This is what we've been looking for.
05:35This one has nails in it.
05:37Yeah.
05:37Makes it a little more interesting, doesn't it?
05:40Wood with history.
05:42Where is it from, you think?
05:43Well, typically driftwood comes from Siberia.
05:48Really?
05:48All the way from there.
05:49Yeah.
05:50So why were they making the instruments out of driftwood?
05:54Why weren't they making them out of just native wood?
05:57Most of settled history, we didn't have any forests.
06:00When the Vikings came, the accounts say that 40% of the country apparently was birch trees.
06:09But they soon disappeared.
06:12They used it for houses, firewood, et cetera.
06:15So driftwood has been a very important source of material.
06:21Should we bring it up there?
06:22Yeah, let's do it.
06:23Yeah.
06:23Cool.
06:38So this is a langspiela.
06:40Yes, this is it.
06:42Langspiel is the traditional instrument of Iceland.
06:45This is what I like about the langspielas, because not so much is known about how exactly it looked.
06:51So you're quite free to interpret it.
06:53Exactly.
06:53It's very much in tune with folk traditions.
06:57But still, it's a part of a big family of drone zithers.
07:01I would say the American equivalent is the dulcimer, Appalachian dulcimer.
07:06And therefore, the most famous langspiel player in the world is Dolly Parton.
07:11She plays the dulcimer very well.
07:13So you have the bows out.
07:16How do you play one of these?
07:17Yes, in Iceland we play it with bow, traditionally.
07:20So you might just play the drone strings first, and then you pick up the melody string.
07:36Like that.
07:38But you can also pluck it, which is quite nice.
07:51And also, if you would drone with me.
07:53Okay.
07:54You have these.
08:00Exactly.
08:01Yeah.
08:01Very nice.
08:02And then you can also hammer it like this.
08:14But traditionally, they would be used for accompaniment.
08:17Accompaniment of?
08:18Singing.
08:19Nice.
08:19Yeah.
08:20So can you play something on the langspiel so I can hear a piece?
08:25Yeah.
08:26Would you mind playing with me a bit?
08:29The drone?
08:59I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
09:25And I'll see you next time.
10:15See ya!
10:29To learn more about Iceland's musical history,
10:31I went to an old Lutheran church in the center of Reykjavik
10:35to meet musicologist, author, and historian Arne Hamer Ingolfsson.
10:40I guess you could say that for most of Icelandic music history,
10:44Iceland was kind of stuck in the Middle Ages.
10:46Iceland was settled by Norwegians in the 9th century,
10:49but the earliest music that we have here is church music
10:52because Iceland was Christianized around the year 1000.
10:56And so for a very long time,
10:58the only music that Icelanders were singing and performing
11:01was folk music and music for the church.
11:05And there are a few different types of Icelandic folk songs,
11:08but one of the unusual, I would say,
11:11probably for people outside Iceland,
11:13is a type of singing called tvírsöngur,
11:16which really just means singing in two parts.
11:18Okay, well, that's pretty common.
11:20That's pretty common.
11:21The interesting thing is that the intervals
11:23between the two lines that are being sung
11:26are always parallel fifths.
11:29Like all the time?
11:30All the time.
11:31Really?
11:32And parallel fifths, as we know,
11:35are forbidden in classical music.
11:37I mean, that's one of the first rules that you learn
11:39when you take a beginning theory class
11:41is no parallel fifths.
11:43Sure.
11:43And it sounds to us really quite strange.
11:47Yeah, you know...
11:56It sounds quite archaic and a bit sort of grim.
12:00Yeah.
12:00But these parallel fifths are part of what makes Icelandic music
12:03really unusual.
12:07At Hallgrimmskirchia, Iceland's great cathedral,
12:10their choir was ready to give me an example.
12:13Grazie.
12:17Grazie.
12:18Oh, what do you say?
12:23Mm-hmm.
12:26My name is Amen.
12:29Yeah, I know.
12:32Right here in the eighths,
12:33that I have to be done.
12:34Yeah, I know.
12:36I know what I've done.
12:38Yeah, I've done.
12:40Yeah.
12:42Yeah, I know what I've done.
12:57These harmonies may be unique to Icelandic music, but they sound pretty great to me.
13:08So Icelanders sang like this for a very long time.
13:10We have a whole repertory of songs.
13:12So when did everything change?
13:14Everything started to change in the late 19th century and the early 20th century,
13:18partly because this is a time when Iceland is starting its push towards independence.
13:23Iceland was part of the Danish kingdom.
13:26And there's a sense that if we want to become a nation among nations,
13:30then we need a national theatre, a national gallery, a symphony orchestra, a music school.
13:36The infrastructure had to be there.
13:38That's a very sort of enlightened leadership.
13:42Yes, yes, exactly.
13:44So out of this movement, were there some good composers that came out of it?
13:49Absolutely.
13:49One of the first Icelandic composers to really have a strong impact was Jon Leifs.
13:56Leifs.
13:56He was very occupied with this idea of what does Iceland sound like and creating a broader style that was
14:06based on the elements.
14:07You know, you have this vast wilderness and you have this expanses of, you know, very quiet, calm,
14:13but then also this unpredictable nature that can often be quite violent as well.
14:19So this idea of really trying to recreate Iceland musically.
14:31I wanted to ask one of Iceland's best contemporary composers, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, how she interprets Iceland in her music.
14:39We're going into a bit darker space.
14:42There's a nice big space we're going to rehearse in.
14:45Okay.
14:59My friend, the cellist Johannes Moser, was here to perform her new concerto.
15:11Yeah, wonderful.
15:13And I love how you, how you start on the C string.
15:17It really kind of manifests this dark opening.
15:22So actually, Anna, I had a question about, um, you ask for some special effects and you ask for, um,
15:31non-pitched notes.
15:32So they're not like, but they're actually more like scratchy sounds.
15:37For example, we have something like, or we have some pitchless sounds like.
15:44So I'm trying to see what you had in mind, actually.
15:48I do think about them like any other melody.
15:51For me, it is about the musical, um, material.
15:56It's like you get a shadow of a pitch.
15:58So it's something very simple, like...
16:08Can be really musical without being really, you can almost not even hear the pitches.
16:14Mm-hmm.
16:15You know, Anna, your music has so much texture in it and, and so much space.
16:19And I'm wondering if the geography of Iceland somehow has informed your creation.
16:27It's not unlikely because, I mean, I grew up here in Iceland.
16:32I, my roots are here.
16:34And even though I've lived abroad for many, many years, it lives with me in my music.
16:39Mm-hmm.
16:39The sense of space and the sense of the wind is almost always blowing and, and you have all these
16:46sounds connected to that.
16:48It's not that I'm trying to take a natural element and put it into music.
16:52It's more that it becomes an inspiration and, and manifests as a, as this combination of textures and lyricism and
17:00harmonies.
17:01Yeah.
17:10Their rehearsal was happening in Harpa, the magnificent concert hall that's also an interpretation of Iceland.
17:18I talked to CEO Svanhildr Konradsdottir.
17:24What motivated the design of this building? I mean, it's so unique.
17:30Icelandic nature.
17:30Mm-hmm.
17:31And the architects, they, they actually did travel to the highlands of Iceland to get the inspiration.
17:36So it's, it's very direct.
17:38You can see it in the facade of the building where you have the formation of the basalt columns you
17:43find in Icelandic nature.
17:45You see it in the black color of the walls and the floor, which are the black sands.
17:50You see it in the cascading staircases, you know, that are the waterfalls of Iceland.
17:55And you see it, of course, in Elborg, which is our main concert hall, and that is the volcanic fiery
18:01heart of Harpa.
18:07What makes Iceland absolutely unique is the light.
18:13And this building could only have been made in Iceland.
18:23Icelandic nature is full of contrasts.
18:27I mean, we have these magnificent mountains, you have these empty spaces up in the highlands.
18:33You know, the black lava, the fire in the volcanoes, geothermal energy.
18:39So it's, it's full of energy and full of life.
18:42So it, it really seeps into the expression of artists and, I guess, all of us.
18:52In the basement of Harpa is the percussion room where Eggert Pahls and Stefan Osterhut showed me some instruments made
19:00for that Iceland sound.
19:02Jan Leifs.
19:03Jan Leifs.
19:04You've heard of him.
19:04Of course.
19:05He's famous here.
19:06Oh, yes, he is actually.
19:07And what does Hekla mean?
19:08Hekla is a volcano, probably one of our most renowned volcanoes.
19:14So this is a big piece.
19:15It is a very big piece.
19:17It was nominated at some point to be the loudest pieces ever written.
19:22Oh, really?
19:23It requires a big orchestra, 18 or 19 percussionists.
19:28God, that's like more percussionists than first violinists.
19:32With everything ranging from snare drums to cannons and chains.
19:38Chains, too?
19:39Chains, yes.
19:39Are these the chains?
19:40These are actually the chains.
19:42You just pull it to play it?
19:44Steve, would you do me the honors?
19:46One, two, three, four.
19:54This is probably not for the softer parts of it.
19:57Right.
19:59Does this show up in Hekla as well?
20:01This is there as well.
20:02This is not very subtle.
20:04Not really, no.
20:05No.
20:05He writes for Big Hammer, played on wood, any wood.
20:10Okay.
20:10I can give you a demonstration.
20:12Okay.
20:14Oh, God!
20:19This is a messu piano.
20:20Whoa!
20:22And what is this made out of?
20:24This is made from a piece of driftwood.
20:26No kidding.
20:27Which, yeah, there's a lot of driftwood and aisment.
20:29Wow.
20:29It's beautiful.
20:31It's an instrument.
20:32It's beautiful.
20:33The instrument should look nice.
20:35Yeah, it does.
20:35It's really nice.
20:36Hey, what are these cymbal-looking things here?
20:39These are the scudi.
20:41They are shields.
20:42Musical shields.
20:44Can I try this one?
20:45Absolutely.
20:46All right.
20:46Let's see.
20:48Okay, so...
20:52I probably don't have your technique.
20:53You're hired.
20:54You're hired.
20:55Wow.
20:56Excellent.
20:57So, does this show up in a Leif's piece as well?
21:00Yes.
21:00Several.
21:01Really?
21:02We premiere these pieces.
21:04Can I hear some Leif's, just with some of these percussion instruments, just sort of understand
21:10the sound?
21:11Yeah.
21:11We'll call the team in.
21:25See you in the Bird League.
21:26A bit.
21:48Very nice.
21:49See you.
21:502
22:12Speaking of volcanoes, it was time for me to go down into this one.
22:37You're going to descend about 400 feet all the way down to the bottom.
22:41If you look down on that side there, you kind of see all the way down to the bottom.
22:45So this is the cone of a volcano that went off 4,000 years ago.
22:51About 4,500 years ago, you would be swimming in lava right now.
22:55But you're going to go through the same way that the lava came out.
22:59Everything that you see around you was made in the eruption itself.
23:03It's the only way you have land in Iceland.
23:05It's erupting volcanoes.
23:07And so, I mean, Iceland forever has lived with the reality of eruptions.
23:12Iceland erupts on average every four to five years.
23:15It's getting colder.
23:16It is.
23:17If it feels a whole lot warmer very quickly, let us know.
23:28Inside a volcano seemed like a fitting place for another traditional Icelandic song.
23:34In the world's the next one.
23:39Inside a volcano seemed like a
23:41year in the world.
23:43So it's coming down to the end of the world.
23:59It's coming down to the world's day of the world.
24:04henni svoværnig fri
24:08og heimur vil i veitav
24:13vei send og skål i sin
24:18henni og slik vid meg med din
24:24ta der falsk fagur din
24:34A more recent eruption happened on Iceland's Westman Islands.
25:04The entire town had to be evacuated to the mainland.
25:14At their Eltheimer Volcano Museum, I saw firsthand how Iceland's volcanoes shaped their lives
25:21with director Christine Johansdotter.
25:24So this house was excavated, and then they built the museum around it?
25:30Yeah, that's right.
25:31This house is one of 350 houses that were destroyed in the Vulcan eruption in 1973.
25:40It was not only lava, also millions, billions of tons of ash.
25:45Ash.
25:46This volcano ash, there were around 60 meters on the top of this.
25:50You know, it's really, I mean, it's incredible. You see ash and lava.
25:56But it's also kind of personal and poignant to see like a spoon or a light bulb or a piece
26:04of jewelry or a piece of clothing.
26:06You have to keep in mind, we didn't have any warning, and it was just, you have to leave now.
26:13So they just took the very most important things, and then they left.
26:19Many of the people did lose everything that night, but we had a lot of luck, we can say that,
26:25because there were a lot of damage, but nobody died.
26:29Were you actually here on the island that night?
26:34Yes.
26:35What happened?
26:36My father did wake me up, and my brothers, we were all sleeping, and he was kind of upset.
26:44I did hear him saying many times, oh my God, oh my God.
26:48We did look out of our windows, and we saw it was like a wall of fire, like the east
26:57part of the island were burning.
26:59We were told that we should go to the harbor and leave.
27:04So our father, he did bring me and my brothers to one of the fishing boats, and he did stay.
27:12He stayed here all the time, and he was joining the rescue teams, and that was not undangerous because nobody
27:19knows what a volcano is going to do.
27:22So this is a pretty common thing in Iceland.
27:25A volcanic eruption, something will just completely change somebody's life, change a family's life, change a town's life.
27:33They just ask, how can you live here?
27:35Aren't you afraid of the next volcano?
27:37And then they say, no, I'm not.
27:39We can deal with the nature, we are quite sure about that.
27:43Nature can change our life, of course, but we have to live with that in Iceland.
28:09Lava from the volcano flowing into the sea added more than four square miles to the island.
28:15Something that Westman chef Giesli Matt uses to his advantage.
28:21So here we're walking on new land.
28:24There was nothing, we were just the sea here, like around 50 years ago.
28:29Really?
28:30Yeah.
28:31So, Giesli, what are we looking for here?
28:34So we're looking for oyster leaves.
28:36Okay.
28:36And the amazing thing about it, it has a slight flavor of oysters.
28:42Oh, really?
28:43Just raw oysters.
28:44Really?
28:45Definitely not the texture of an oyster, but the taste is there.
28:50So here it is.
28:51Okay.
28:52I was once working at a restaurant called Elevmanson Park.
28:56This is in New York.
28:57Oh, sure, it's very famous.
28:58Very famous.
28:59I was doing like an internship and I was asked to cook a dish and I only had 30 minutes
29:06to do so.
29:08And they told me I could use everything in the kitchen except for foie gras, truffles and oyster leaves.
29:14And back then, I had never heard of oyster leaves.
29:17They were importing them fresh from Alaska and paying one dollar per leaf.
29:23And there I was standing just like, I've seen this before.
29:29You grew up with this?
29:30Yes.
29:31But like nobody kind of knew that it's quite a special herb.
29:37So if you want to taste it, it has like a brindiness, but it grows wild all over here in
29:46Iceland and all over the beaches.
29:48And for you, it's free.
29:49It's free?
29:49Yeah.
29:53Yeah, and like all these herbs can't be used.
29:56Sea sandworms, mountain soil, some lime grass up there.
30:05It's actually quite high tide now.
30:08Uh-huh.
30:08But there is still a lot of seaweed that we can find.
30:11Okay.
30:12We use around 12 types of seaweeds at the restaurant.
30:17This is the most commonly used in Iceland.
30:21It's called dulls.
30:21Okay.
30:22When it's dried, it has almost like a licorice-y, like quite dark flavors.
30:27Okay.
30:28But then when you're foraging all the time, you get curious about all the different varieties.
30:35This is called pepperdolls.
30:39Okay.
30:40Then this is one of my favorites here.
30:44It's called sea lettuce.
30:46Sea lettuce, nice.
30:48It's so fragile, you can just eat it in a salad, just lightly dressed.
30:54Uh, we use this quite a lot.
30:57This is sugar kelp.
30:59It's amazing to use for broths.
31:02So I think we should just take that back to the restaurant and cook some food.
31:07Awesome.
31:08Amazing.
31:08Okay.
31:11Fifteen years ago, Gisli and his family opened this restaurant,
31:15trying foodies and food writers from around the world to his little corner of Iceland.
31:23All right, welcome.
31:26So this is a sugar kelp seaweed broth with a cracker that's made from nori seaweed.
31:32And I recognize that.
31:33Yeah, the oyster leaf.
31:35Nice.
31:35And some seaweed capers.
31:37And then here is cod skin that we've salted, dried, and puffed.
31:42Wow.
31:42Hope you enjoy it.
31:43Very, very impressive.
31:45Mmm.
31:47Oh, my God.
31:52Good job.
31:52Mmm.
31:53Mmm.
31:55That is laughably good.
31:58Whoa.
31:59Lots of stuff.
32:01This is a sea urchin.
32:03And here you have the cured halibut, which is cured with the arctic thyme.
32:07And then here you have our cod wing.
32:11We love filling the table with food.
32:13Wow, that is outrageous.
32:17Oh.
32:18Mmm.
32:20Wow.
32:20Everything been all right so far?
32:21That is a world-beating uni.
32:24Beautiful.
32:24That's the world's best uni.
32:25Amazing.
32:26Amazing.
32:27You know, you can only have this meal, not just in Iceland, but only on this island.
32:32That is, hopefully, what makes it special is that you can only get it here.
32:39It seems all of Iceland's arts are profoundly shaped by this unique environment.
32:45Back at Harpa, conductor Eva Olekainen ran the Iceland Symphony Orchestra through Anna's Cello Concerto.
32:51...
33:11Excited to get a little more.
33:40Okay, yeah.
33:41So the ninth tuplet is over two beats, isn't it?
33:46Yeah. So first clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoons.
33:49I think some of you tried to play a little bit shorter those notes, but really...
33:55It is a queen tuplet. What else, Johannes?
33:59Eva, it's a bit too fast for me. I need a little bit more space for...
34:03...make it speak. Yeah, sure.
34:06Just to hear the notes a little bit more.
34:09Eva?
34:11Okay.
34:14So I was wondering with the second part, because it's so completely different from the first part.
34:21That it would be nice to have the atmosphere be kind of laid back a little bit.
34:27So he draws you in, like with the glisanti and the strings, he's drawing you in there with that.
34:32Okay.
34:33And I like...
34:33Feels a bit driven still, right?
34:35Yeah. So felt a little bit driven. And this is only for kind of inspiration.
34:39Yeah, it's a little bit more meditative somehow, the second part.
34:42Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
34:44Yeah, we can do that.
34:45Yeah.
34:45Okay. So, letter J, please.
34:48Thank you very much.
34:50Thank you very much.
34:52Thank you very much.
34:53Thank you very much.
34:54Thank you very much.
34:55Thank you very much.
34:55Thank you very much.
35:01Thank you very much.
35:02Thank you very much.
35:03Thank you very much.
35:03Thank you very much.
35:04Thank you very much.
35:04Thank you very much.
35:05Thank you very much.
35:05Thank you very much.
35:07Thank you very much.
35:10Thank you very much.
36:12And so do you teach music here, like music class here? What do you teach?
36:16I teach clarinet here. So they have private lessons two times a week for each student.
36:21So for us, we're lucky if we have a music budget at all. I mean, you teach private lessons?
36:28I mean, it's pretty integrated into the school system and it's across the country. It's quite common that you have
36:35access to band and also private lessons.
36:38Boy, lucky Icelanders, huh?
36:40No, I know.
36:41That's fantastic.
36:41And you don't realize how lucky we are. I mean, I started when I was seven with a private teacher.
36:47I was eight in that room.
36:49This room?
36:49Yeah.
36:50Nice.
37:18Nice.
37:20That's how we met. 10, 12 years ago when we were together in music school, I was studying the classical
37:25clarinet. And now Birgit is the conductor of the same choir.
37:29That's really neat. And do you ever sing with the clarinet choir?
37:32So we have this one particular song that we did, yeah, together, where I arranged one of my songs for
37:39a clarinet choir.
37:45So let me wait in, slightly re-heaving, touched its gleason and tear.
37:58Only one dream away from our perfect birth. One promise away from birth. One secret away from. One promise away
38:14from. One dream of. One kiss away from life.
38:39So let's dance.
39:09PIANO PLAYS
39:28Finally, to see how Iceland's traditional culture and folklore shapes its music,
39:34I went for a drive with composer and conductor Daniel Bjartesson.
39:46So, here we are next to a famous rock that is named after the elf that lives inside of
39:52it.
39:53His name is Stöpaste.
39:54This is his home.
39:55This is his home.
39:56And for those who can see him, and there are quite a lot of people in Iceland who can still
40:01see the elves and the hidden people, they say he's quite friendly.
40:05Somebody left an apple for him.
40:07I'm sure he will be very happy.
40:09Let's walk up here and we'll get a great view of the fjord.
40:11Okay.
40:20Wow.
40:23Pretty cool.
40:24So, this is Kalfjordr, which means whale fjord.
40:28The name is thought to have arrived from an old legend about a man who fell in love with
40:35an elvish woman.
40:37And they had a child together.
40:38But he did not want to recognize that he had this child, and she became very angry with
40:44him and turned him into a whale with a red head, and it was called a red head, and banished
40:50him to the oceans where he would terrorize and plague the fishermen for many, many years.
40:56Until eventually an old priest who had lost two of his sons to the red head whale, through
41:01some sorcery, was able to drag him onto land where he actually exploded.
41:07So, that was the end of the red head, and that's where the name probably comes from.
41:12Icelanders have a, they have an imagination here.
41:15Yeah, we have a lot of fun stories like that.
41:19Folk traditions have influenced classical composers here, as they do elsewhere.
41:24I met Arnie again at the Reykjavik church.
41:27Jon Leifs actually collected Icelandic folk songs.
41:30So he went around the country with a little cylinder recording device.
41:35And he recorded farmers and fishermen and people all over the country because he was really
41:41interested in, you know, what was the original sound that he could use for his music.
41:47And because we were talking about the parallel fifth singing earlier, one of the other types
41:53of traditional Icelandic folk singing is also quite unusual.
41:57It's called rýmr.
41:58And the unusual thing about that is the rhythmic structure, because they're reflecting the metric
42:05pattern and the syllable count of the poetry.
42:08I see.
42:08So every syllable gets one note, basically.
42:11Oh, I see.
42:11It's a bit unpredictable, I guess, if you're hearing it for the first time.
42:15But once you understand the way it comes from the poetry, it all makes sense because it's
42:19just reflecting the way the poetry is structured.
42:21Can I hear it?
42:22Yes, absolutely.
42:23So you have...
42:31I'm already lost.
42:33OK.
42:33OK.
42:33OK.
42:33OK.
42:34So let's see.
42:34What did he do here?
42:37So you have...
42:37Oh, so that's how he notated it.
42:394, 4, 2, 4, 3, 4.
42:41Exactly.
42:42And he can just kind of choose.
42:43Exactly.
42:44Can you play that again?
42:45Yeah.
42:45Yeah.
42:46Yeah.
42:48Yeah.
42:50Yeah.
42:57That's cool.
42:59Yeah.
43:01That's cool.
43:02Yeah.
43:25The Atlantic climate shaped their traditional houses, which shaped their culture.
43:30Many lived in compounds like this, well into the 20th century.
43:35I went there with Eiffie Joff and her sister Osthilder.
43:42Turf houses would always be built according to the winds and the sun.
43:47So the main side, of course, is on the south side.
43:51And you see the black house there.
43:54This is the kitchen.
43:56The same type of kitchen people have been using since medieval times.
44:01And the walls are very, very thick, made of turf and rocks.
44:05Like this?
44:06Oh, no, probably like this at least.
44:08So that's a lot of insulation.
44:10Yes.
44:10And that's why people were able to, you know, survive the winters.
44:15You know, they might look a bit rustic, but they're very functional.
44:18And there's a reason why they have lasted for so long.
44:22Can we see the inside of one of these?
44:23Of course.
44:24Yeah.
44:25Come on.
44:26Come along.
44:32It's really small in here.
44:35I mean, it looks bigger from the outside, but it's small.
44:39So this is the center room.
44:41And this is also the center place of I study culture through centuries.
44:46How many people lived in here?
44:48How many beds are here?
44:49Five.
44:49Five.
44:50So calculate that with two.
44:52You will have the number of people.
44:54So everybody shared.
44:55Yeah.
44:56The only source of heating were the bodies themselves.
44:59Oh, really?
45:01Yeah.
45:01And if a bed would be empty, they would bring in an animal, sheep or a calf, to put in
45:10the
45:10bed so they wouldn't lose the heating.
45:14So this is before electricity, before the internet.
45:19What would people do in a house like this?
45:21Yeah.
45:22There's storytelling.
45:23There's chanting.
45:24Rimur.
45:25And there would be traveling musician performers that would go from farm to farm and entertain
45:32the people.
45:33Literacy was very common.
45:35This was the sole light in the Bastoa.
45:38And the ruler of light was the head of the household and would decide what was being
45:45read.
45:45And it also gives us this important notion of the darkness in this room and where folklore
45:54was created.
45:56And it was dark a lot.
45:58Yeah.
45:58We live, like, in darkness a big part of the year in Iceland.
46:04It certainly influences your behavior and what you spend your time doing.
46:09Do you write more songs during the winter months?
46:12Writing songs is the perfect thing to do when you're inside in a small room.
46:17And I think it kind of, maybe even architecture, spending time indoors in small rooms can influence
46:23the sound.
46:25Are the songs more intimate?
46:27Are your voice more intimate?
46:28In Iceland we work a lot on headphones.
46:30We have a great connection to details.
46:33A lot of people say Icelandic music is textural.
46:36But maybe it's also just because in Iceland it is silent.
46:39It is very quiet.
46:50We should have left our hearts in the forest where they first met.
46:59We take them back when now they are broken and start to slowly forget.
47:22And if I don't see another, see you another, hear me.
47:27We'll be reunited someday, somewhere.
47:31And our life will fail, but we know that it will stay.
47:35We can make it reappear, we'll send you out, somewhere.
47:39We're gonna ask you to forget to forget today.
48:01I knowTeam vote for 20 seconds and then we use the land, we want to use the light.
48:04And our life will fail, but we know that it will stay.
48:14Daniel wanted to show me one more Icelandic tradition.
48:18There are hot spring baths on the edge of this fjord.
48:23Everybody talks about how beautiful Iceland is,
48:26but when I arrived, I was really, truly shocked.
48:29It's so incredible here.
48:31It is incredibly beautiful,
48:33and whenever I come back home when I'm traveling,
48:35I feel really grateful to live here.
48:38It's a very special place.
48:40I think Icelanders really do appreciate the beauty of this place,
48:45but I think they're also quite aware of under the surface of beauty.
48:49There is also a lot of danger.
48:51This wasn't always an easy place to live in
48:54for the generations that came before,
48:57and it's awe-inspiring in many ways to live here,
49:00but it's also terrible,
49:03and you need to treat it with respect.
49:05It's really beautiful.
49:16This has got to be one of the most picturesque hot springs in the world.
49:21This is one of a kind.
49:23Yeah, this is a really, really beautiful spot,
49:26this hot spring here called Kramsvik.
49:28But this is also the result of volcanic activity, right?
49:32I mean, this place is full of contrasts.
49:35You know, we have the extreme cold,
49:37and then we have this heat rising from the earth.
49:40You know, we have almost completely bright summers,
49:44and then it gets very dark in the winter.
49:47And it's always swinging between these two extremes.
49:51They live together in one small country.
50:02So why is Iceland so musical?
50:05This beautiful, terrible landscape certainly shapes their art,
50:09and you can hear it in Anna's cello concerto.
50:17And then we have to join both Hieronym S gonna take office.
50:27See you later.
50:27See you later.
50:27Come here.
50:31We'll see you later.
50:33Bye.
51:34But there's more to the Icelandic sound.
51:41This soaring choral hymn, so different, is also by Anna.
51:56That says a lot about Icelandic musicians.
52:07In a small population, they must be versatile, easily crossing genres.
52:15They're classically trained, yet shaped by a thousand years of distinct culture.
52:23In dark winters, they have time and silence to create.
52:28In bright summers, they explode with song.
52:36This magnificent choir, by the way, are all amateurs.
52:41Icelanders who come together to sing together.
52:44They are doers, as they say.
52:47And what they do is music.
52:50I'm Scott Yu, and I hope you can now hear this.
53:17This program is available with PBS Passport and on Amazon Prime Video.
53:23To find out more about this and other Great Performances programs, visit pbs.org slash greatperformances and follow us on
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