world. “Faith has been taken away from us. Maybe we need this faith. I think I have some kind of passion for faith. Maybe this piece is a kind of expression for my need for this. It is no light stuff. It is easier for me to speak to Maria than to God.” Hjalmar H. Ragnarsson was born and brought up in IsafjorSur, between the sea and the mountains. He is the son of the previously mentioned head of the music school, Ragnar H. Ragnar. He continued his education in the U.S.A. at Brandeis University. Among his teachers were Seymour Shifrin (“so much music has already been written that you don’t have to bother much about increasing the total quantity already available”) and Harold Shapero. He continued his studies with Karel Husa at Cornell University and also at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht in Holland. Hjalmar H. Ragnarsson took his Masters degree at Cornell University, which also boasts the largest collection of Ice- landic literature outside Iceland. His examination work consisted of an extensive study on Jon Leifs and a com- position, Six Songs for alto voice, flute, cello and piano to texts by Stefan HorSur Grfmsson performed at the ISCM festival in Israel in 1980, that are set in an economical and sensitive manner. The thesis on Jon Leifs is one of the all too few examples of Icelandic musicology concerned with the music of today. On questions of ideology and musical language, Hjalmar H. Ragnarsson and Jon Leifs are complete opposites. “This is just the reason why I think I am better suited to study him . . . We are miles apart as to what matters in composition, but I still esteem him as a very good and very original composer.” A composer that has had a great deal of significance for Hjalmar H. Ragnarsson is Edgara Varese. “Both his music and his life also, his philosophy, his opinions on his environment, his writings about sounds and space, sound masses, and his conception of sound. . . He is an extremely intense composer, and in a sense I believe that intensity is very important in my music making. I want every pitch to have something to say.” His own composing is largely confined to the fields of chamber and choral music. There is also a large-scale, unfinished electro-acoustic project, Notturno, that has been waiting for completion for years. For

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