More outstanding orchestral music from Iceland

Concurrence: Music by Icelandic composers

Five years ago we moved from the Prairies to Canada's Banana Belt: Southern Vancouver Island. That means horrific cold weather and tornados are a thing of the past, but we don't live a worry-free life by any means. No one here can (or at least should) ignore the very good chance of a devastating earthquake happening at any time. Indeed, Victoria is right in the sweet spot for the coming Big One. So Páll Ragnar Pálsson’s Quake scared the bejesus out of me. It's performed here, by Daniel Bjarnason and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, with such urgent presence that even someone on more solid ground is apt to feel at least uncomfortable. All four of these fairly long pieces present the primeval forces that made, and continue to re-make, this amazing island in the North Atlantic. Besides its outstanding physical beauty, Iceland is well known for an astounding range of world-class artists of all sorts, in the performing, literary and visual arts. The painter Gudrun Kristjansdottir is a good example; her 1999 painting "Red Hillside" is featured on the cover of this new 2-disc release, the second in Sono Luminus's ISO Project of Icelandic orchestral music.

The only composer I know of the four on this album is Anna Thorvaldsdóttir. Her Metacosmos was premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 2018, and was also featured in last summer's Proms. This new recording is another step on the way to its becoming a 21st Century orchestral classic. María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir's Oceans is a natural extension of Thorvaldsdóttir's schema into the vast seas. Finally, Haukur Tómasson's Piano Concerto No. 2 fits well with the other three works. The piano part has more of an obligato role than a virtuosic one, and the music textures have so much interest, which it shares with the rest of the entire hour-plus in this fascinating release.