The Grotesque & The Sublime Iceland Symphony Orchestra & Daníel Bjarnason

• Daníel Bjarnason (b. 1979): FEAST:
• 1 Bjarnason: FEAST: I. a voluptuous scene that masquerade 04:35
• 2 Bjarnason: FEAST: II. the presence of a masked figure 04:14
• 3 Bjarnason: FEAST: III. the brazen lungs of the clock 02:19
• 4 Bjarnason: FEAST: IV. dance of the mummer 03:22
• 5 Bjarnason: FEAST: V. the revelation 03:18
• 6 Bjarnason: FEAST: VI. one by one dropped the revellers (danse macabre) 06:07
• 7 Bjarnason: FEAST: VII. dominion over all (skeleton procession) 01:36
• Fragile Hope:
• 8 Bjarnason: Fragile Hope 14:17
• Inferno:
• 9 Bjarnason: Inferno: 1. The Bells 13:53
• 10 Bjarnason: Inferno: 2. A Passage 06:08
• 11 Bjarnason: Inferno: 3. Dark Shores 10:53
• Total Runtime 01:10:42

Info for The Grotesque & The Sublime

Daníel Bjarnason is a hub-like figure in the group of composers who could be said to constitute a First Icelandic School. But he also stands slightly apart from his peers. As the nation’s foremost conductor, he has premiered and recorded works by its central protagonists including Jóhann Jóhannsson, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir and others (notably on the Sono Luminus series Emergence, Recurrence and Occurrence). But Bjarnason’s own music has long sprawled beyond the borders of the school’s distinct aesthetic and incorporated non-abstract forms such as opera, dance and film scores.

While some Icelandic orchestral music enacts a gradual transformation on a vaporous orchestra, akin to the shifting shape and colour of a North Atlantic cloud, Bjarnason’s formative orchestral works often cleave to a solid, defined musical object which might be distorted or obscured before emerging again intact. His music has never shied away from the slow, drone-lagged music of Icelandic archetype but it has also used more varied tempi and more urgent rhythmic profiles. It has also deployed different time scales in parallel – notably in works such as Emergence and From Space I Saw the Earth, in which planes of music operating at different speeds momentarily sync. This brings to his music a sense of what the late Danish composer Per Nørgård described as ‘the timeless forces of existence – nature in the broadest sense.’

Those works had their roots in breakthrough concertos for cello and piano, Bow to String and Processions, both of which thrive on the process of expanding strong, fertile material by zooming deep in or stretching wide out – a more thematic, less spectral approach than that of Icelandic fashion but one that still sees Bjarnason reveling in the properties of sound itself. (Andrew Mellor)

Vivi Vassileva, percussion
Frank Dupree, piano
Iceland Symphony Orchestra
Daniel Bjarnason, conductor

Iceland Symphony Orchestra
Founded in 1950, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra is the national orchestra of Iceland and one of the leading institutions on the country's cultural scene. Widely praised for its performances and recordings, the orchestra presents a full season each year of subscription series, school and family concerts, and concerts devoted to modern music. The majority of the orchestra's concerts are broadcast live on radio by the National Broadcasting Service, and selected concerts are televised and streamed live online. The Iceland Symphony is the resident orchestra in Reykjavík's award-winning Harpa Concert Hall.

In September 2020, Eva Ollikainen assumes the post of Chief Conductor and Artistic Director, a role previously held by conductors such as Yan Pascal Tortelier, Ilan Volkov, Rumon Gamba, Petri Sakari, Jean-Pierre Jacquillat and Osmo Vänskä, who currently holds the title of Honorary Conductor. Vladimir Ashkenazy has conducted the orchestra regularly since the 1970s and now holds the position of Conductor Laureate. Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir is the orchestra's Composer-in-Residence, and Icelandic composer-conductor Daníel Bjarnason is Principal Guest Conductor.

The Iceland Symphony Orchestra has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, BIS, Chandos, Naxos, and Sono Luminus. Its wide-ranging international discography includes highly praised cycles of the symphonies of Sibelius and orchestral works by Jón Leifs. The orchestra has also recorded the complete orchestral works of Vincent d'Indy with Rumon Gamba for Chandos. The first volume of the series was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance. One of its most recent releases, of symphonies by Charles Gounod with conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier, was an Editor's Choice in Gramophone and CD of the week in The Sunday Times.

The Iceland Symphony Orchestra has appeared widely throughout Europe and beyond, including performances at the BBC Proms, the Wiener Musikverein, and the Kennedy Center. In 2018 it embarked on a highly successful three-week tour of Japan with Ashkenazy and most recently the orchestra toured Germany and Austria with conductor Daníel Bjarnason and Víkingur Ólafsson. It has also appeared twice in New York's Carnegie Hall. Writing in The New York Times, the critic Alex Ross described the orchestra's performance under Osmo Vänskä as “sensational… one of the finest Sibelius performances I have encountered.”

Daníel Bjarnason
Conductor and composer Daníel Bjarnason is Artist in Association at the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. He was the orchestra's Artist in Residence from 2015 to 2018 and was appointed as Principal Guest Conductor at the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in 2019.

Daníel Bjarnason is one of Iceland's foremost musical voices today, increasingly in demand as a conductor, composer and programmer. This season he takes up the title of Principal Guest Conductor with Iceland Symphony Orchestra, leading the Orchestra on tour to Munich, Salzburg and Berlin, as well as in Reykjavík. The appointment follows his tenure there as Artist in Residence. He keeps a busy composing schedule alongside his conducting commitments, with many of his works being taken up beyond their premieres and regularly programmed around the world.

As guest conductor he debuts this season with Gothenburg Symphony and Aalborg Symphony orchestras and Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife. Previous guest appearances include invitations from Los Angeles Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony, Tokyo Symphony and Turku Philharmonic orchestras and Gävle Symfoniorkester.

Bjarnason maintains a close connection with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which commissioned him to write a work for Gustavo Dudamel, Zubin Mehta and Esa-Pekka Salonen, titled From Space I Saw Earth, was performed at their Centennial Birthday Celebration Concert in October 2019. The Orchestra is also part of a new song cycle commission by the Crash Ensemble, together with Musiekgebouw Frits Phillips Eindhoven, where Bjarnason has been Composer in Residence since 2016, and already requested from him a new concerto for piano and orchestra for a future season.

In 2017 the Los Angeles Philharmonic premiered Bjarnason's Violin Concerto at the Hollywood Bowl, in a co-commission with Iceland Symphony for Pekka Kuusisto, while he co-curated the orchestra's Reykjavík Festival, an eclectic and multi-disciplinary 17-day event, in which he featured as conductor and composer.

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