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Great Performances S53E16
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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, we just hit.
00:18Just hit.
00:19Yeah.
00:19Iceland produces some of the best music and composers in the world.
00:23Yeah, yeah, 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.
00:37Wow.
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.
00:54Oh, my God.
00:58To find out how this brilliant, sunlit,
01:03rainy,
01:05volcanic land 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 Birgeson.
01:58First 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.
02:24Yeah.
02:25There are 400,000 people here.
02:26400,000.
02:27Just hit.
02:28Just hit.
02:28Yeah.
02:29That's one every 800 people per 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.
02:56In 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.
03:05You kind of have the feeling that 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, it's a, do the first thing that comes to mind and it'll work out somehow.
03:21Yeah.
03:21We are doers.
03:22It's awesome.
03:23We're doers in Iceland.
03:24Yeah.
03:25Are you guys going to sing something?
03:26Yeah, we could 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.
03:44And then his dream, right, of becoming a knight.
03:47He was not a knight.
03:49He was a farmer.
03:51But he wanted to be a knight.
03:52He had big dreams.
03:53Yeah.
03:54Typical Icelandic way of going for it.
03:56It was, it was, was farmer or knight on, on his tombstone?
04:00Yeah.
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, let's honor his memory.
04:07Yeah.
04:08Okay.
04:14Let's go.
04:16Let's try this thing.
04:18Yeah.
04:29It was a farmer.
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. And it ends here because it hit the water.
05:03Yeah.
05:17With us was Jofrider Akastotter, but her artist name is easier for me to say, J.F.D.R.
05:29So Efi, here's your driftwood.
05:32Yes. This is what we've been looking for.
05:35This one has nails in it.
05:37Yeah. Makes it a little more interesting, doesn't it? Wood with history.
05:42Where is it from, you think?
05:44Well, typically driftwood comes from Siberia.
05:48Really?
05:48All the way from there, yeah.
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.
06:00I mean, when 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, etc.
06:15So driftwood has been a very important source of material.
06:21Should we bring it up there?
06:22Yeah, let's do it.
06:36Cool.
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 those?
07:17Yes, in Iceland, we played with bow traditionally.
07:19So you might just play the drone strings first, and then you pick up the melody string.
07:37Like 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, very nice.
08:02And then you can also hammer it, like this.
08:13But traditionally, they would be used for accompaniment.
08:17Accompaniment of?
08:18Singing.
08:19Nice.
08:19Yeah.
08:20Yeah.
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?
08:28Sure.
08:29A drone?
08:30Yeah.
08:31Yeah.
08:32Yeah.
08:40Yeah.
08:43Yeah.
08:50Yeah.
08:53Yeah.
08:54Yeah.
09:00Böndir bláum sóla salÃ, söðlux upp à lignum dalÃ,
09:08fólkið hafa hana hagalÃk, fyrsta skemmdun bænum á,
09:14fagurkalaði fuglins á, og það fleiri fugla hæðan à frÃðum sumar stundi,
09:21fÃð, lÃsta maðurinn lengiðar við um til.
09:43Unn ásbján úr öllum magtur, heyrði sætum à gam aftum,
09:51Svingi banà grasagáttum, gjörði tÃð á enda glál
09:56Fagurka verið fullum sá
10:00Skjópa lÃfið langtjana báttum, langst var allt à blundi
10:06LÃsna maðurinn lengi það við nátti
10:28To learn more about Iceland's musical history
10:31I went to an old Lutheran church in the center of ReykjavÃk
10:35To meet musicologist, author, and historian Arni Hæmur 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
10:55And so for a very long time
10:57The only music that Icelanders were singing and performing
11:01Was folk music and music for the church
11:04And there are a few different types of Icelandic folk songs
11:08But one of the unusual, I would say probably for people outside Iceland
11:13Is a type of singing called TvÃsröngur
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 between 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, are 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
11:41Sure, sure
11:41Is no parallel fifths
11:43Sure
11:43And it sounds to us really quite strange
11:46Yeah, you know
11:55It sounds quite archaic and a bit sort of grim
11:59Yeah
12:00But these parallel fifths are part of what makes Icelandic music really unusual
12:07At Hallgrimskirchia, Iceland's great cathedral
12:10Their choir was ready to give me an example
12:13Thank you
12:23Thank you
12:54CHOIR SINGS
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. We 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?
13:48Absolutely. One of the first Icelandic composers to really have a strong impact was Jón Leifs.
13:56Leifs.
13:56Leifs.
13:57He was very occupied with this idea of what does Iceland sound like?
14:03And creating a broader style that was based 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 Thorvaldsdóttir,
14:37how 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.
15:10Yeah.
15:12Wonderful.
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, I had a question about, you ask for some special effects and you ask for non-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 material.
15:56It's like you get a shadow of a pitch.
15:59So it's something very simple, like...
16:08Can be really musical without being really, you can almost not even hear the pitches.
16:14You know, Anna, your music has so much texture in it and so much space, and I'm wondering if the
16:23geography of Iceland somehow has informed your creation.
16:27It's not unlikely because, I mean, I grew up here in Iceland, my roots are here, and even though I've
16:34lived abroad for many, many years, it lives with me in my music.
16:39The sense of space and the sense of the wind is almost always blowing, and you have all these sounds
16:46connected 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 manifests as this combination of textures and lyricism and harmonies.
17:02Yeah.
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.
17:30And the architects, they actually did travel to the highlands of Iceland to get the inspiration, so 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, and this building could only have been made in Iceland.
18:18Wow.
18:23Icelandic nature is full of contrasts.
18:27I mean, we have these magnificent mountains, you have these empty spaces up in the highlands, you know, the black
18:34lava, the fire in the volcanoes, geothermal energy.
18:39So it's full of energy and full of life.
18:42So 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 Eckert 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.
19:07What does Hekla mean?
19:09Hekla is a volcano, probably one of our most renowned volcanoes.
19:13So 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?
19:38Chains, 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?
19:45One, two, three, four.
19:54This is probably not for the softer parts of it.
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.
20:05He writes for Big Hammer, played on wood, any wood.
20:10I can give you a demonstration.
20:12Okay.
20:14Oh, God!
20:19This is a metal 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 in Iceland.
20:29Well, it's beautiful.
20:31It is very nice.
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 symbol-looking things here?
20:39These are the scudi.
20:40They are shields, musical 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.
20:54You're hired.
20:54You're hired.
20:55Wow.
20:56Excellent.
20:56So, does this show up in a Leif's piece as well?
20:59Yes.
21:00Several.
21:01Really?
21:01Several.
21:02We premiere these pieces.
21:04Can I hear some Leif's just with some of these percussion instruments to sort of understand
21:10the sound?
21:11Yeah.
21:11We'll call the team in.
21:43Bye.
22:12Speaking of volcanoes,
22:13it was time for me to go down into this one.
22:37You're going to descend about 400 feet
22:39all the way down to the bottom.
22:41If you look down on that side there,
22:42you can see all the way down to the bottom.
22:44So this is the cone of a volcano
22:48that went off 4,000 years ago.
22:51About 4,500 years ago,
22:53you would be swimming in lava right now.
22:55Wow.
22:56But you're going to go through the same way
22:57that the lava came out.
22:59Everything that you see around here
23:00was made in the eruption itself.
23:03The only way you have land in Iceland
23:05is erupting volcanoes.
23:06And so, I mean, Iceland forever has lived
23:10with 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,
23:20let us know.
23:28Inside a volcano seemed like a fitting place
23:31for another traditional Icelandic song.
23:34And the wind is so sweet and fun,
23:39and it is so sweet.
23:43Sjöndröð sér og býta, skortir sitt brúðast allt og skýndu snáðar við.
24:00Sjöndröð sér og býta, skortir sitt brúðast allt og skýndu snáðar við.
24:18Sjöndröð sér og býta, skortir sitt brúðast allt og skýndu snáðar við.
24:35A more recent eruption happened on Iceland's Westman Islands.
24:39Sjöndröð sér og býta, skortir sitt brúðast allt og skýndu snáðar við.
25:02Sjöndröð sér og býta, skortir sitt brúðast allt og skýndu snáðar við.
25:14At their Eltheimer Volcano Museum, I saw firsthand how Iceland's volcanoes shaped their lives
25:21with director Kristine Johansdotter.
25:25So 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.
26:18Many 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.
26:49We did look out of our windows, and we saw it was like a wall of fire.
26:56Like the east part of the island were burning.
26:58We 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,
27:18because nobody knows what the volcano was 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? Aren't you afraid of the next volcano?
27:37And then they say, no, I'm not. We 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 Shep Geasley Matt uses to his advantage.
28:21So here we're walking on new land. There was nothing, we were just the sea here, like around 50 years
28:29ago.
28:29Really? Yeah.
28:31So, Geasley, what are we looking for here?
28:34So we're looking for oyster leaves.
28:36Okay.
28:37And the amazing thing about it, it has a slight flavor of oysters.
28:42Oh, really? Just 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, which 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.
29:07And 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.
29:48For you, it's free.
29:49It's free?
29:49It's free.
29:52Yeah.
29:53Yeah, and like all these herbs can be used.
29:56Sea sandwort, 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.
30:12Okay.
30:12We use around 12 types of seaweed at the restaurant.
30:17This is the most commonly used in Iceland, 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.
30:47Nice.
30:48It's so fragile.
30:49You can just eat it in a salad, just lightly dressed.
30:55We 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.
31:24Okay.
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.
31:52Mmm.
31:53Mmm.
31:55That is laughably good.
31:58Yeah.
31:58Whoa.
32:00Lots of stuff.
32:01This is a sea urchin.
32:03And here you have the cured halibut, which is cured with arctic thyme.
32:07And then here you have our cod wing.
32:11We love filling the table with food.
32:13Wow.
32:14That is outrageous.
32:17Oh.
32:18Mmm.
32:19Wow.
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.
33:04Yeah, there isn't that unique environment either, I don't care.
33:18I guess, could you put the fotий in Sicher on the landscape at
33:19I'm so kidnapped, but it's not enough for Vietnam to help meично to help me Jazz to their
33:20futility as a horse, isn't it?
33:20Of all of Holland.
33:31¡Ews naturally to another place in Spanish!
33:40Okay, yeah. So the ninth tuplet is over two beats, isn't it? Yeah. So first clarinet,
33:47bass clarinet, bassoons. I think some of you tried to play a little bit shorter those notes,
33:52but really... It is a queen tuplet. What else, Johannes? It's a bit too fast for me. I needed a
34:01little bit more space for... to make it speak. Yeah, sure. Just to hear the notes a little bit more.
34:13So 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. So he draws
34:28you in
34:28like with the glisanti and the strings. He's drawing you in there with that. Okay. And I like...
34:33It feels a bit driven still, right? Yeah. So felt a little bit driven. And this is only for kind
34:38of
34:38inspiration. Yeah, it's a little bit more meditative somehow the second part. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
34:43Absolutely. Yeah, we can do that. Yeah. Okay. So letter J, please.
34:47Let's thank you.
35:01I'll be there for now.
36:13So do you teach music here, like music class here?
36:16What do you teach?
36:16I teach clarinet here.
36:18So 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.
36:25I mean, you teach private lessons?
36:28I mean, it's pretty integrated into the school system and it's across the country.
36:33It's quite common that you have access 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.
36:43I mean, I started when I was seven with a private teacher.
36:47Yeah.
36:48In that room.
36:48This room?
36:49Yeah.
36:50Nice.
36:51Nice.
36:51It's why we have so much music here.
36:53It's because it's not an elitist thing.
36:55It's not a class thing.
36:55It's like a, it's a community thing.
36:58And this is what we do to socialize.
36:59We play in bands.
37:00We play in our classical environment or in jazz or choirs.
37:05A lot of culture for singing in choirs.
37:06And it is to meet and to, to socialize and to play together.
37:10So I have 55 students that meet me two times a week, which is awesome.
37:15And I'm also conducting clarinet choir.
37:18Clarinet choir.
37:18I've never heard of that.
37:19And this is how we met, you know, 10, 12 years ago when we were together in music school.
37:24I was studying the classical clarinet.
37:26And now Birgit is the conductor of the same choir.
37:29That's really neat.
37:30And do you ever sing with the clarinet choir?
37:32So we have this one particular song that we did, yeah, together.
37:36Where I arranged one of my songs for a clarinet choir.
38:06From birth, one secret away.
38:11From, one promise away.
38:14From, one dream of, one kiss away.
38:19From life, from my life.
38:24From another life.
38:27From another life.
38:29From another life.
39:00PIANO PLAYS
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39:47next to a famous rock that is named after the elf that lives inside of it.
39:53His name is Støjpastet.
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
40:00still see the elves and the hidden people, they say he's quite friendly.
40:05Somebody left an apple for him.
40:06I'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.
40:19Wow.
40:23Pretty cool.
40:24So this is Kvalfjordr, which means whale fjord.
40:28The name is thought to have arrived from an old legend about a man who fell in love with an
40:35elvish woman and they had a child together, but he did not want to recognize that he had this child
40:42and she became very angry with him and turned him into a whale with a red head and it was
40:48called
40:49the red head and banished him to the oceans where he would terrorize and plague the fishermen for many
40:55many years until eventually an old priest who had lost two of his sons to the red head whale
41:01through some 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 and he recorded farmers
41:38and fishermen and people all over the country because he was really interested in, you know,
41:43what was, what was the original sound that he could use for, for his music.
41:47And because we were talking about the parallel fifth singing earlier,
41:51one of the other types of traditional Icelandic folk singing is also quite unusual.
41:57It's called Rhymr. And the unusual thing about that is the rhythmic structure
42:01because they're reflecting the metric pattern and the syllable count of the poetry.
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,
42:18it all makes sense because it's just reflecting the way the poetry is structured.
42:21Can I hear it?
42:22Yes, absolutely.
42:24So you have...
42:32I'm already lost.
42:33Okay, okay.
42:33So let's see, what did he do here?
42:35Um, so you have...
42:37Oh, so that's how he notated it.
42:39Four, four, two, four, three, four.
42:41Exactly.
42:42And he can just kind of choose.
42:43Exactly.
42:44Can you play that again?
42:45Yeah, yeah.
42:57That's cool.
43:25The Atlantic climate shaped their traditional houses,
43:28which shaped their culture.
43:30Many lived in compounds like this, well into the 20th century.
43:35I went there with Afi, Joff, and her sister, Osthildr.
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.
43:52And 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, like, probably like this at least, you know.
44:08So that's a lot of insulation.
44:10Yes.
44:10And that's why people were able to, uh, 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.
44:25Come 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?
44:47How 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.
45:00Oh, really?
45:01And if a bed would be empty, they would bring in an animal,
45:07sheep for a calf, to put in the bed 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?
45:22Yeah, there's storytelling.
45:23There's chanting.
45:24Rimur.
45:25And there would be traveling, um, musician performers
45:28that would go from farm to farm and entertain the people.
45:33Literacy was very common.
45:35This was the sole light in the Baustoa.
45:38And the ruler of light was the head of the household
45:43and would decide what was being read.
45:45And it also gives us this important notion of the darkness in this room
45:53and where folklore was created.
45:56And it was dark a lot.
45:58Yeah.
45:59We 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
46:21can influence the sound.
46:23Um, is the, are the songs more intimate?
46:26Are 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
46:55Where they first met
46:58We take them back and now they are broken
47:03And start to slowly forget
47:22And if I don't see you now
47:25I'll see you another year
47:27We'll be reunited someday, some way
47:31And I'll lie with the fear
47:33But we know that it was there
47:35We can make it real
47:37We'll see you in the end, some way
47:39Jenn'
47:55Derish and embrace it
47:57Appreciate the time you got
47:59I ask you to forget me now
48:01Someday, some way
48:03And our life!
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've been traveling,
48:36I 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.
49:05Beautiful.
49:15This 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 Komsvik.
49:28But this is also the result of volcanic activity, right?
49:33I mean, this place is full of contrasts.
49:35You know, we have the stream 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.
49:46And it's always swinging between these two extremes.
49:51They live together in one small country.
49:54That's true.
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.
51:45It's 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.
52:46And 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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