Dagr

Few composers have been as consistently preoccupied with their national origins as Jón Leifs, who only found his calling as a composer when he encountered a collection of Icelandic folk music. From the very beginning, Iceland, its music and myths, its landscape and climate furnished him with the material for almost all of his compositions. And from the very beginning Leifs knew that he wanted to create a great oratorio using texts from the Edda, Iceland's national treasure. He started work on the libretto in 1930, and soon decided that the theme of the first section would be The Creation of the World.

Most of the songs in “Natt og Dag” (“Night and Day”) were originally written in higher keys for song and piano, except for the songs by Nordheim and Åm, which were written for song and harp, as well as Sommerfeldt’s piece for song and solo cello. Many composers could have been included in this anthology, and the selection of songs in this recording is not meant to be authoritative or representative from a music-historical perspective. The songs were chosen merely because I enjoy them, because they are rarely performed and because I consider them to be suitable for my arrangements for bass-baritone, harp and string quintet. Still, “Norwegian Songs vol. 2” presents songs by 18 Norwegian composers who in various ways moved towards new forms of expression after the culmination of the national romantic period, combining elements from European and Norwegian art song tradition in interesting ways.

Runaljod – Gap Var Ginnunga (Sound of Runes - The Gap Was Yawning) is the first album by Norwegian Nordic folk group Wardruna. It was released in 2009 by Indie Recordings/Fimbulljóð Productions. The album is the first chapter of the Runaljod trilogy (continued on the next two Wardruna albums), inspired by the 24 ancient runes of the Elder Futhark. The lyrics were composed by Kvitrafn in Norwegian, Old Norse and Proto-Norse. Nordic traditional instruments such as percussion and strings were used in the recording of the album.