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Experience the latest emotional Arab drama clips, passionate romance, family sagas, revenge stories, and addictive short drama episodes from the Arab world. All content comes with multi-language subtitles including English, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu and more, perfect for global audiences.
We upload fresh Arab drama content daily – full episodes, short clips, and viral scenes from the hottest Arabic series. Whether you love powerful love stories, intense family dramas, or gripping revenge plots, Sinai Drama delivers the most addictive Arab entertainment.
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TVTranscript
00:05I'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.
00:19Iceland produces some of the best music and composers in the world.
00:24Yeah, 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.
00:39And 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,
01:04volcanic land of extremes
01:07creates a people overflowing with music.
01:11Come with me on the next Now Hear This to 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.
01:46But 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 gotta 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.
02:27400,000, just 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.
02:48Nobody visited us for centuries.
02:49Yeah.
02:50So we were basically just trying to, yeah, entertain ourselves over long winters and dark nights.
02:56Yeah.
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.
03:12Yeah.
03:13And 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.
03:21We 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 de Clemensson and it's talking about...
03:41When he was born.
03:42Yeah.
03:42Who he was married to.
03:44And then his dream, right, of becoming a knight.
03:48He 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.
04:02Yeah.
04:03So he lived a farmer, but he died a knight.
04:04Yeah.
04:05Let's hear it.
04:06So let's, let's honor his memory.
04:07Yeah.
04:08Yeah.
04:15Let's get started.
04:18...
04:34...
04:35...
04:35...
04:36...
04:36...
04:36...
04:36...
04:36...
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 Jofrieder Akastotter, but her artist name is easier for me to say, J.F.D.R.
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, 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.
06:01It means that 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, yeah.
06:38So this is a langspieler.
06:40Yes, this is it.
06:42Langspiel is the traditional instrument of Iceland.
06:45This is what I like about the langspielers, 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.
06:56But still, it's a part of a big family of drone zithers.
07:01I would say the American equivalent is the dulcimer, Appalachian dulcimer.
07:05And 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.
07:19So 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, you 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.
08:20So can you play something on the langspiel so I can hear a piece?
08:25Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:26Would you mind playing with me a bit?
08:29The drone?
08:30Yeah.
08:49That's it.
08:51Yeah.
09:00Böndir bláum sóla salí, söðlux upp í lignum dalí.
09:08Fólkið hafa hana hagalík, fyrsta skemmt um bænum á.
09:14Fagult galar í fuglinn sá.
09:17Og það fleiri fuglækjar í fringum sumar stundi.
09:23Lista maðurinn lengi þar við um til.
09:44Lista maðurinn lengi þar við um til.
09:51Svingi bann í grasa, gáttum gjörði tíð á enda kljál.
09:57Fagur galar í fuglinn sá.
10:00Skjópa nýðið langtjana báttunglækst var allt í blundi.
10:06Lista maðurinn lengi þar við um til.
10:09Thú íng þarri.
10:28Thú íng þarri nem út.
10:31Lista maðurinn
10:38Arne 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 ninth 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.
11:04And 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 Tvíssöngur,
11:16which really just means singing in two parts.
11:19Okay. Well, that's pretty common.
11:20That's pretty common.
11:21The interesting thing is that the intervals between the two lines
11:25that are being sung are 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.
11:47Yeah, 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 really unusual.
12:07At Hallgrimskyrkja, Iceland's great cathedral, their choir was ready to give me an example.
12:13It's a world of poder of the Father.
12:23It's a world of ninths.
12:31It's a world of ninths.
12:36It's a world of ninths.
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.
13:11We 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,
13:25and there's a sense that if we want to become a nation among nations,
13:31then 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.
13:55Leifs.
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 Thorvaldsdottir,
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, Anna, I had a question about, you ask for some special effects and you ask for non-pitched
15:32notes.
15:33So 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.
16:20And 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.
16:39The sense of space and the sense of the wind is almost always blowing.
16:45And you have all these sounds 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 manifests as a,
16:57as this combination of textures and lyricism and harmonies.
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.
17:31And 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.
17:59And that is the volcanic fiery heart of Harpa.
18:07What makes Iceland absolutely unique is the light.
18:12And this building could only have been made in Iceland.
18:18Wow.
18:19What makes Icelandic nature is full of contrasts.
18:27I mean, we have these magnificent mountains.
18:31You 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.
18:50Mm.
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.
19:04I know him.
19:04You've heard of him.
19:04Of course.
19:05He's famous here.
19:06Oh, yes, he is actually.
19:07And what does Hecla mean?
19:09Hecla is a volcano.
19:10Probably one of our most renowned volcanoes.
19:13So this is a big piece?
19:16It 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?
19:43To 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 Hecla 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.
20:29Wow.
20:30It's beautiful.
20:31It's an instrument.
20:32It's beautiful.
20:33The instrument should look nice.
20:35Yeah, it does.
20:35It looks really nice.
20:36Yeah.
20:36Hey, what are these cymbal-looking things here?
20:39These are the scudi.
20:41They 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?
21:00Yes.
21:00Several.
21:01Really?
21:01Several.
21:02Yeah.
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.
21:41Go bit!
21:42nacharlo.
21:45Go bit.
22:04See you next time.
22:07See you later?
22:09Bye much!
22:11On top of the难 word.
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.
22:44So 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, but you're going to go through
22:57the 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 is 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.
23:34, called moment again.
23:39It is.
23:40It is.
23:41It is.
23:43It is.
23:48It is.
23:52It is.
23:58It is.
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.
25:25So, 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, but it's also kind of
25:59personal and poignant to see like a spoon or a light bulb or a piece of jewelry or a piece
26:06of clothing.
26:07You have to keep in mind, we didn't have any warning, and it was just, you have to leave
26:12now.
26:12So, 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
26:24that, because there were a lot of damage, but nobody died.
26:30Were you actually here on the island that night?
26:34Yes.
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, we did look out of our windows
26:52and
26:52we saw it was like a wall of fire, like 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 vulcuna 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,
27:31change a town's life.
27:33The guests 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 Shep Geasley 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 Geasley, 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, 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, and they told me I could use everything in the kitchen, except for foie gras, truffles,
29:13and oyster leaves.
29:14And back then, I had never heard of oyster leaves.
29:17They were importing them fresh from Alaska, and paying $1 per leaf.
29:23And there I was standing, just like, I've seen this before.
29:29You've grown 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 brininess, but it grows wild all over here
29:46in Iceland and all over the peaches.
29:48For you, it's free.
29:49It's free?
29:49Yeah.
29:53Yeah, and like all these herbs can be used, the sea sandworms, mountain soil, some lime
30:02grass up there.
30:05It's actually quite high tide now, but there is still a lot of seaweed that we can find.
30:12Okay.
30:12We use around 12 types of seaweeds at the restaurant.
30:17Okay.
30:18This is the most commonly used in Iceland.
30:21It's called dulls.
30:22Okay.
30:22When it's dried, it has almost like a licorice-y, like quite dark flavors.
30:28Okay.
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.
30:40And this is one of my favorites here.
30:44It's called sea lettuce.
30:46Sea lettuce, nice.
30:47It's so fragile, you 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, trying foodies and food writers
31:17from around the world to his little corner of Iceland.
31:23All right.
31:24Welcome.
31:26So this is a sugar kelp seaweed broth with a cracker that's made from nori seaweed.
31:32I recognize that.
31:33Yeah, 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.
31:48Good job.
31:55That is laughably good.
31:58Whoa.
32:00Lots 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.
32:14Wow.
32:14That 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.
32:32Have this, hopefully.
32:34What 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
32:51Cello Concerto.
32:52Yeah, I do.
32:54That's not just in tow.
33:08That's an awesome arc of the German fighter.
33:10Let's take a look.
33:10Let's take a look.
33:11Okay.
33:12Get ready to go, Neil.
33:14Yes.
33:20No problem.
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 try to play a little bit shorter those notes but
33:52but really it is a queen tuplet what else Johannes? Eva it's a bit too fast for me I need
34:01a little bit
34:01more space for make it make it speak yeah yeah sure just to to hear the notes a little bit
34:09more
34:09Eva so I was wondering with the second part because it's so completely different from the
34:19from the first part that um it would be nice to have the atmosphere be kind of laid back a
34:26little
34:26bit so he draws you in like with the glissandi and the strings he's drawing you in there
34:31with that okay and I like it's a bit driven still right yeah so felt a little bit and this
34:37is only
34:37for kind of inspiration yeah it's a little bit more meditative somehow the second part yeah yeah
34:43absolutely absolutely yeah yeah we can do that yeah okay so letter j please
34:51you
35:19you
35:25you
35:27you
35:27you
35:27you
35:41you
35:46you
35:59every Icelandic musician in this orchestra is a product of their superb school music program
36:05to learn more Jov took me back to her grade school to meet her old friend Birker Hafsteinsson
36:12and so do you teach music here like music class here what do you teach i teach clarinet here
36:17so they have private lessons two times a week for each student so for us we're lucky if we have
36:24a music budget at all i mean you teach private lessons i mean it's pretty integrated into the school
36:30system and it's across the country it's quite common that you have access to band and also private
36:38lessons boy lucky Icelanders huh no i know that's fantastic you don't realize how lucky we is i mean
36:44i started when i was seven and with a private teacher yeah in that room over this room yeah nice
36:51it's why we have so much music here it's because it's not an elitist thing it's not a class thing
36:55it's like a it's a community thing and this is what we do to socialize we play in bands we
37:01play
37:01in our classical environment or in jazz or choirs a lot of culture for singing choirs and it is to
37:07meet and to to socialize and to play together so i have 55 students that meet me two times a
37:14week
37:14which is awesome and i'm also conducting clarinet choir clarinet choir never heard of that and this
37:20is how we met you know 10 12 years ago when we were together in music school i was studying
37:24the
37:25classical clarinet and uh no bit kid is the conductor of the same choir that's really neat and do you
37:30ever sing with the clarinet choir so we have this one particular song that we did yeah together where
37:36i arranged one of my songs um for a clarinet choir
37:39one sun or keith's sudden a silver light and so let me wait slightly
37:53breathing touched its gleason and tear only one dream away from our perfect burn
38:03one one promise away from our perfect burn one secret away from one promise away from one dream
38:16of one kiss away from life from my life from another life from another life from another life
38:35so
38:43so
38:45so
38:45so
38:45so
39:15VIOLIN 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 it.
39:53His name is Stöpastit.
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,
40:03they 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.
40:19Wow.
40:22Pretty cool.
40:24So, this is Kalfirðr, 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.
40:36And 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.
40:48And it was called a red head and banished him to the oceans where he would terrorize and plague the
40:54fishermen for many, many years.
40:55Until eventually, an old priest who had lost two of his sons to the red head whale, through some sorcery,
41:02was able to drag him onto land where he actually exploded.
41:07So, that was the end of the red head.
41:09And 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 Reykjavík church.
41:27Jón 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 interested in, you know,
41:42what 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 of traditional Icelandic folk
41:55singing 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 pattern and the syllable count
42:06of the poetry.
42:08So, every syllable gets one note, basically.
42:11Oh, I see.
42:12It'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 just reflecting the
42:20way 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.
42:34What did he do here?
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.
42:44Exactly.
42:44Can you play that again?
42:45Yeah.
42:45Yeah.
42:57That's cool.
43:25The Icelandic climate shaped their traditional houses, which shaped their culture.
43:31Many lived in compounds like this, well into the 20th century.
43:35I went there with Eyfi, 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 what? Like 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, 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?
45:01Yeah.
45:01And if a bed would be empty, they would bring in an animal, sheep for a calf, to put in
45:10the bed.
45:10So, 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, there's storytelling, there's chanting, rimur, and there would be traveling musician performers that would go from farm to farm
45:31and entertain the people.
45:33Literacy was very common.
45:35This was the sole light in the Ba'z Doha.
45:38And the ruler of light was the head of the household and would decide what was being read.
45:46And it also gives us this important notion of the darkness in this room and 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.
46:10Do you write more songs during the winter months?
46:13Writing 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 the 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.
46:51We 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 you, I'll see you another year.
47:27We'll be reunited someday, someday, somewhere.
47:31And I like the fear, but we know that it was there.
47:35We can make it reappear someday, somewhere.
47:39La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la,
47:53la.
47:55We cherish and embrace it.
47:58Appreciate the time we got.
48:00I'll ask you to forget me now.
48:02Someday, someday, someday.
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,
48:46but I think they're also quite aware of under the surface of beauty.
48:49There is also a lot of danger.
48:52This 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,
49:02and you need to treat it with respect.
49:05It's 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 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.
49:47And 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.
51:35But 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,
52:12easily crossing genres.
52:15They're classically trained,
52:17yet 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, and 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.
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