# Jón Leifs (1899 - 1968)



## Tapkaara

*Jon Leifs*









_
From Wikipedia:

Jón Leifs (born May 1, 1899 in Sólheimar, died July 30, 1968 in Reykjavík) was an Icelandic composer. He left Iceland in 1916 to study in Germany at the Leipzig Conservatory. He graduated in 1921 having studied piano, and then devoted his time to conducting and composing. He became successful as a conductor, and also as a writer.

He married Jewish pianist Annie Riethof. They had two daughters, Snót and Líf, and lived in Wernigerode and subsequently in Baden-Baden. His family was harassed by the Nazis. In 1944 he moved to Sweden, and in 1945 he moved back to Iceland. After returning to Iceland he eventually divorced his wife. One of his daughters, Líf, drowned in a swimming accident off the coast of Sweden, and he wrote his string quartet Vita et Mors in her memory.

Most of his works are about Icelandic natural phenomena. In the piece Hekla he depicts the eruption of the volcano Hekla which he witnessed. In the Saga Symphony he musically portrays five characters of famous Icelandic sagas. His last work, Consolation, Intermezzo for string orchestra was written as he was dying. He died of lung cancer in Reykjavík in 1968.

Leifs and his wife are the subjects of the film Tears of Stone / Tár úr steini (1995), directed by the Icelandic director Hilmar Oddsson._

One of my favorite composers. One of the few atonal composer whose output "makes sense" to me. He wrote one of the coolest organ concertos of all time.

Is anyone else familiar with Jon Leifs?


----------



## Art Rock

I have a couple BIS CD's. Interesting work, highly original.


----------



## hlolli

He is my god. I know all about him. Probably my favourite, his music is the soul of Iceland.

I just uploaded the organ concerto last week on youtube! 




 did you hear it here?

Because I live in Iceland I know lot of people that knew him, in my school I study on his composition table and have read trough much of handwritten manuscripts.

I also uploaded better version of Hekla that other youtube videos have.


----------



## World Violist

I've heard the Saga Symphony; certainly very interesting, though I'm not sure if it's entirely my kind of music at the moment.

Definitely a composer to hear, though.


----------



## starry

hlolli said:


> He is my god. I know all about him. Probably my favourite, his music is the soul of Iceland.


 Here we go again. I prefer it when he doesn't go for big exotic sounds and just tries to express himself personally, such as in the string quartet written on the death of his daughter. I don't know how anyone could deny that is a powerful personal piece rather than trying to claim it as the nationalistic 'soul' of a people.


----------



## hlolli

I agree. I don't want to be telling people to listen to his less accecable pieces for obvious reason. 
This piece is amongst my favourite. I still hear Icelandic spirit in this. I not so nationalistic, for example I can say 90% of Icelandic people are damn stupid and spoiled. I personally would like to live outside of Iceland for some part of my life. They have slang in Iceland "the mountains are blue from distance". 





This piece here is also just as great as Elegy


----------



## Guest

Tapkaara said:


> One of the few atonal composer whose output "makes sense" to me.


Perhaps that's because he's not an atonal composer?

Perhaps, also, we should all take a pledge to discontinue the use of "atonal." It's not so much that it has so many meanings. Look at the word "spring," for instance. But all the meanings of "spring" are pretty precise. The meanings of atonal are anything but. Perhaps only one of them has any sort of precision. And, what's more, all the meanings of atonal are about one thing, music, so that any undefined use of the word will be ambiguous in a way no use of spring could be. (Even such a metaphorical use of spring as in "she has a real spring in her step" will not be misunderstood.)

Atonal: early attempt to use tones without reference to the tonal system. Called pantonality by Schoenberg. Other composers would later take up this idea, like Varese, who organized the sounds of his pieces by analogy to natural processes such as crystallization.

Atonal: music that's organized by rows instead of keys. (Dodecaphonic, serial.)

Atonal: any music that's not organized according to key relationships.

Atonal: music that has lots of "dissonance" (i.e., close harmonies). All tonal music has lots of dissonance. Indeed, the main principle of tonality is movement between consonance and dissonance. The amount of close harmonies increased generally throughout the progress of tonal music in the eighteen and nineteenth centuries and early twentieth centuries. Perhaps a more precise way to phrase this meaning of atonal would be to say "music that has lots of discords," and by this point any precision would be welcome!! One time a customer came into the store where I work part-time asking for some music by Ravel, but not the "atonal" kind. (!) He liked a lot of Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, and Bartok, but he thought a lot of their music was full of "atonal" bits.

Atonal: music I don't like or don't understand.

Atonal: ugly.

As you can see, only the first definition in this list has any pretense to precision at all, and that not very much. From that point the precision plummets until by the last two, it's gone. And the most common uses of atonal are the last three. The only even halfway legitimate (accurate descriptions) uses of "atonal" are the first three. Number four, the one Tapkaara is using, describes a lot of tonal music. And in fact, Leifs music is only intermittently and only vaguely atonal. His music is clearly tonal at the core, with lots of very tight (and unresolved) harmonies thrown in for effect. The underlying logic, however, is tonal.


----------



## emiellucifuge

When I say Atonal, I mean music that does not have a tonal center. So tonic-dominant functions no longer exist.

And I do love Jon Leifs!


----------



## starry

hlolli said:


> I agree. I don't want to be telling people to listen to his less accecable pieces for obvious reason.
> This piece is amongst my favourite. I still hear Icelandic spirit in this. I not so nationalistic, for example I can say 90% of Icelandic people are damn stupid and spoiled. I personally would like to live outside of Iceland for some part of my life. They have slang in Iceland "the mountains are blue from distance".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This piece here is also just as great as Elegy


You get stupid and clever people in every country, I wouldn't want to make blanket judgements (which can include stereotypes) of people anywhere. That's why where music is concerned I like to look at people as individuals. Even if Leifs claimed he was expressing some Icelandic spirit ultimately he can't claim to represent every Icelander, only himself.

As far as atonal music goes I would agree with the stricter definition. Leifs is more an expressive modern 'romantic' and should be put within the development of that tradition perhaps.


----------



## emiellucifuge

One of my favorite pieces by Leifs is the tone poem Hekla.
I have seen the magnificent mount from close and it is truly deserving of this music. It is imposing and doom-laden.

I love your country Hlolli, it has the most beautiful landscapes in Europe.


----------



## hlolli

starry said:


> You get stupid and clever people in every country, I wouldn't want to make blanket judgements (which can include stereotypes) of people anywhere. That's why where music is concerned I like to look at people as individuals. Even if Leifs claimed he was expressing some Icelandic spirit ultimately he can't claim to represent every Icelander, only himself.
> 
> As far as atonal music goes I would agree with the stricter definition. Leifs is more an expressive modern 'romantic' and should be put within the development of that tradition perhaps.


Yes, musicologist put him into a category of romantics. Iceland has always been very isolated and it was late 19th century that we had the first westernized trained musician. We never had baroque tradition and never classical. Icelanders didn't understand any sort of music, so if we were to tell people to listen to atonal music in those days they would run wild. In music our romantic period was from 1900-1950 we were so far behind you would not believe it.

But that makes his music "Icelandic" is that he just like Bela Bartok collected folk songs and saved many from extinction and used the rythm structure and melody lines in his music. The typical folk song rythm is 1!-2-3-4 1!-2-3 1!-2-3-4 1!-2 etc.. it's a bit like stravinsky. Funny thing is that many of Icelandic folk song have very weird chromatic tones and semitones which made Jón Leifs possible to write rather atonal music with folk song resemblance. These folk song are possibly the closest thing that Vikings sung in their prime years.





 just litsen to the rythm of this song.
and compare with this 




p.s I love just as much other folk songs, Hungarian, German and French you name it. Especially Lithuanian.


----------



## starry

hlolli said:


> Yes, musicologist put him into a category of romantics. Iceland has always been very isolated and it was late 19th century that we had the first westernized trained musician. We never had baroque tradition and never classical. Icelanders didn't understand any sort of music, so if we were to tell people to listen to atonal music in those days they would run wild. In music our romantic period was from 1900-1950 we were so far behind you would not believe it.
> 
> But that makes his music "Icelandic" is that he just like Bela Bartok collected folk songs and saved many from extinction and used the rythm structure and melody lines in his music. The typical folk song rythm is 1!-2-3-4 1!-2-3 1!-2-3-4 1!-2 etc.. it's a bit like stravinsky. Funny thing is that many of Icelandic folk song have very weird chromatic tones and semitones which made Jón Leifs possible to write rather atonal music with folk song resemblance. These folk song are possibly the closest thing that Vikings sung in their prime years.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> just litsen to the rythm of this song.
> and compare with this
> 
> 
> 
> 
> p.s I love just as much other folk songs, Hungarian, German and French you name it. Especially Lithuanian.


The romantic period actually had a big influence on modern music though, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century. Ultimately anyway it's just a style, a means of expression (not evolution in the sense of improving music), more important is the quality of the music for me. And the use of folk style within music was one of the typical romantic techniques.


----------



## Tapkaara

some guy said:


> Perhaps that's because he's not an atonal composer?


Sure he is atonal. At the very least, most of his music does not contain a traditional tonal center.


----------



## starry

Tonal music can change and develop though, doesn't have to keep exactly the same the rules.


----------



## Guest

All the pieces I know _sound_ tonal:

Baldir
Saga Symphony
Hekla
Iceland Overture
Requiem
Loftr-Suite
Reminiscence du Nord
Elegy

All the commentators I've read _call_ his music tonal.


----------



## Tapkaara

some guy said:


> All the pieces I know _sound_ tonal:
> 
> Baldir
> Saga Symphony
> Hekla
> Iceland Overture
> Requiem
> Loftr-Suite
> Reminiscence du Nord
> Elegy
> 
> All the commentators I've read _call_ his music tonal.


Hmmm, he sounds quite atonal to me. Tonally ambiguous, perhaps. Where have you read about his tonality?


----------



## Sid James

Aren't we talking more about a progressive treatment/view of tonality? Similar to the music of Mahler, Scriabin or Nielsen? Mind you, I haven't heard a note of Leifs' music, but reading the above information sounds like he might have been part of that tradition rather than the serialism of Schoenberg, Boulez, Nono, etc...


----------



## Guest

Andre said:


> Aren't we talking more about a progressive treatment/view of tonality? Similar to the music of Mahler, Scriabin or Nielsen?


Yes, we are. And not even so much tonally progressive as just willing to use non-tonal dissonances freely. But the tonality is always there, underneath the loud crashes and bangs.

And, to answer Tapkaara's question, reviews, program notes, CD liner notes, online biographies.


----------



## Tapkaara

some guy said:


> Yes, we are. And not even so much tonally progressive as just willing to use non-tonal dissonances freely. But the tonality is always there, underneath the loud crashes and bangs.
> 
> And, to answer Tapkaara's question, reviews, program notes, CD liner notes, online biographies.


Listening now to Leif's Requiem for a cappella choir. This sounds tonal to me. But take a work like Hekla...while I do not have perfect pitch (I can't tell keys just from hearing a few notes), I'd like to know how purely tonal that work is. I cannot imagine that it is. And no, it is certainly not serialist. It must lack a traditional tonal center. Or perhaps I am just crazy!

Alex Ross of the New Yorker mentions the "atonal leaps" in Leif's Edda: http://www.therestisnoise.com/2006/10/news_from_icela.html

This link is a book snippet which makes this reference: "...and the Icelandic Jon Leifs who in the 1920s had proposed the development of a specifically Nordic atonal style..." http://books.google.com/books?id=eW...AEwAw#v=onepage&q=jon leifs atonality&f=false

This review of Leifs Hekla CD on BIS makes the following statement about the Iceland Overture: "The 1926 overture presents diatonic folk melodies in atonal contexts..." http://www.recordsinternational.com/archive/RICatalogNov99.html (Note it says diatonic AND atonal, which certainly illustrates that not all of Leifs need be without a purely tonal center of some sort.)

Perhaps I am not alone in picking up on atonality in Leifs? Anyway, Someguy, I cannot agree with you that "the tonality is always there" in Leifs.

Anyway, I think it is fair to say Leifs is, at the very least, a composer who wrote atonal as well as more tonally centered works. Although I am not one for atonal music in general, there is something about how Leifs handles his (occasional) atonality that is very appealing to me.


----------



## hlolli

I think none of his works are based on dominant chords or the circle of fifth. Except for maybe folk song transcriptions. He frequently uses hexakord and octokord system. And harmony progression are based on third leaps. If using chord is tonal in itself then Jón Leifs is tonal, then Debussy and Bartók should be called tonal composers too. His works never evolve around tonal center, if music is suppose to be tonal it should modulate on a key with perfect cadence. It never occours in Jón Leifs music then he should be called atonal.

For example Ligeti's Atmosphere uses cluster chords, that music is not serial but it's atonal. Same thing for jón leifs. But Anton Webern might be a serial composer and therfore also atonal.


----------



## starry

hlolli said:


> then Debussy and Bartók should be called tonal composers too.


That's what I think of them as, plenty of the music of the 20th century is imo. That's why it's nowhere near as forbidding as many seem to think it is, it very much still has a link to music of the past. But people can define things as they want as long as good music is recognised that is the main thing.


----------



## Tapkaara

hlolli said:


> I think none of his works are based on dominant chords or the circle of fifth. Except for maybe folk song transcriptions. He frequently uses hexakord and octokord system. And harmony progression are based on third leaps. If using chord is tonal in itself then Jón Leifs is tonal, then Debussy and Bartók should be called tonal composers too. His works never evolve around tonal center, if music is suppose to be tonal it should modulate on a key with perfect cadence. It never occours in Jón Leifs music then he should be called atonal.
> 
> For example Ligeti's Atmosphere uses cluster chords, that music is not serial but it's atonal. Same thing for jón leifs. But Anton Webern might be a serial composer and therfore also atonal.


I agree with all of this.

And when I said, by the way, that Leifs is one of the atonal composers that I actually enjoy, I did not mean to suggest that all of his works are atonal. But several of his works are atonal, or have atonal moments in them.


----------



## chalkpie

What would you guys (and gals) recommend as the top 3 works by this cat?


----------



## Prodromides

Hi, chalkpie:

Not speaking for anybody else except myself, I tend consider the _oeuvre_ of Jon Leifs as two halves: his early works (pre-1947) and his mature post-1946 output.

The Leifs harmonic 'fingerprints' can be heard in all of his works throughout the decades, but the single opus which could be described as a turning-point is BALDR, which, completed by 1947, was the first of his works to incorporate an extended percussion section into already large orchestral forces with unorthodox items like cannons, pistols, rocks, etc.
All of the 'later' works, from BALDR until Leifs' death in 1968, I find captivating. His earlier pieces seem, to me, slightly more conventional in their usage of standard musical forms (cantata, concerto, symphony) and interpolations of folk music material.

So, as for recommendations, I suggest one early work (which pushes the envelope) and two pieces from Leifs' final 20 years:


Concerto for Organ and Orchestra (1930) ... and quite a wild one at that
Reminiscence du Nord (1952) for string orchestra, which I feel is the most resonant of his works for strings
Geysir (1961) the first of his 4 grand tone poems depicting natural phenomena (because I love this opus' contrabassoon playing in the lower-most registers  )


----------



## chalkpie

many thanks.


----------



## Morimur

_Born: May 1, 1899; Sólheimer Farm Died: July 30, 1968; Reykjavik, Iceland

"Jón Leifs was a highly individual voice who ushered in a style of Icelandic nationalism in music, much the way Sibelius did in Finland. Not that his music sounded anything like that of Sibelius: Leifs was a modernist, perhaps not as radical as Schoenberg and his disciples, but a creator of imaginative, often compelling scores that were not easily accessible. His music typically features string tremolos, chordal progressions that evolve slowly, frequent use of parallel fifths, as well as thirds and fourths, and an often harsh and primitive sound. He also frequently used folk melodies and styles, and like Bartók, made several efforts to collect folk themes. As an orchestrator he set himself apart from most of his contemporaries in his colorful manner of scoring and use of primitive-sounding percussion instruments: anvil, chains, and even rocks. His choral and vocal writing is often just as unusual, making enormous demands on the performer, with challenging leaps and uncomfortably high notes, as well as other bewildering requirements. While Leifs' music is not internationally popular, many of his compositions are available on recordings, and renewed interest in his works since the late twentieth century augurs well for his future reputation." -ArkivMusic_


----------



## Woodduck

A composer I've been meaning to explore. Heard a few things years ago, was somewhat impressed. Thanks for the reminder.


----------



## Grizzled Ghost

There's already another Leifs thread, which I found by looking in the composer index sticky post.

Here: http://www.talkclassical.com/8407-jon-leifs.html

Having said that, some of the older composer threads - including Leifs' - seem to start out with petty arguments that I wish would gradually fade away after a few years. It would be nice if there was some way to edit these threads a bit to emphasize discussion of the composer.

Speaking of which, I only have the track "Hekla" at the moment. Some day I'll get more.


----------



## Morimur

Grizzled Ghost said:


> There's already another Leifs thread, which I found by looking in the composer index sticky post.
> 
> Here: http://www.talkclassical.com/8407-jon-leifs.html


I can never find anything in that damned index. That old Leifs thread seems to have gone to hell.


----------



## Morimur

Random comment: Wagnerians in TC should give Jón Leifs' music a listen—they will find much to love.


----------

