Faroese

This book presents a comprehensive, contrastive account of the phonological structures and characteristics of Icelandic and Faroese. It is written for Nordic linguists and theoretical phonologists interested in what the languages reveal about phonological structure and phonological change and the relation between morphology, phonology, and phonetics…

Traditional Nordic folk music with roots in the Middle Ages meets three new compositions by Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (b. 1932), Sunleif Rasmussen (b. 1961) and Rune Glerup (b. 1981) on this CD debut of the Danish trio Gáman. The rare combination of drum songs from Greenland, chain-dances from the Faroe Islands, wedding music from the island of Fanø and new sounds by three living composers becomes an opportunity to dance, listen and immerse yourself in worlds of sound that surprisingly and enrichingly elucidate one another.

Until quite recently, the Faroe Islands were much better-known as a remote archipelago lost in the icy Arctic waters rather than a musical nation. Some may recall a Faroese tune used by Grainger in Let’s Dance in Green Meadows for piano duet and by Nielsen in his atmospheric, though rather slight An Imaginary Journey to the Faroes. Now, thanks to the tireless vitality of a Mighty Handful of Faroese composers (Kristian Blak, Atli Petersen, Pauli í Sandagerđi, Edvard Debess and Sunleif Rasmussen) whose music placed the Faroes on the contemporary musical map, things have changed considerably.