his long residence in Germany - he took the initiative in founding Tonskaldafelag Islands (Society of Icelandic Com- posers), of which he was president for many years. He also worked for the creation of an organization that could take care of copyright questions. This resulted in the establish- ment of STEF in 1948. He even attempted to create a council of international composers (Conseil International des Com- positeurs). It was founded at Pingvellir in 1954, but never succeeded in embracing more than twelve nations. It was dissolved in 1963. Jon Leifs is undoubtedly one of Iceland’s greatest, most interesting and most controversial figures in the field of music. His ideas were altogether too individual and too much a part of their time to be able to build a school to any extent worth mentioning. One can perhaps assert that his brand of nationalism was repellent for many of his contemporaries. Neither has his music played a particularly important role in Iceland, for the simple reason that very little of it has been performed. As long as the Edda Oratorios, Baldr and many other important compositions are unperformed, it is in reality meaningless to try and assess his contribution. Immigrants and Some time towards the end of the 1920’s, a gramophone Emigrants recording was made in Copenhagen of the Flower Aria from Bizet’s opera Carmen in Icelandic. The singer was Petur Jonsson (1884-1956) and he was the first of many Icelandic singers to educate themselves abroad during the first decades of the twentieth century. These made their careers, with varying degrees of success, on the opera stages of the world. Iceland had no opera and therefore had no possibility of providing a livelihood for its great singers. Petur Jonsson studied in Berlin and thereafter sang through the opera repertoire on different German stages before returning home after fifteen years abroad. The tenor Stefan Islandi later built a similar career, though he was mainly based in Copenhagen. This type of career was not unusual and certainly not unique to Iceland. But for those at home in Iceland, these life stories were something quite incredible. That an Icelander could travel out into the world at large and lay royalty and audiences at their feet! - for that was how they imagined it. The life of these singers was carefully followed and reported 48

(1) Front Board
(2) Front Board
(3) Front Flyleaf
(4) Front Flyleaf
(5) Front Cover
(6) Front Cover
(7) Page [1]
(8) Page [2]
(9) Page I
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(191) Back Cover
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(193) Rear Flyleaf
(194) Rear Flyleaf
(195) Rear Board
(196) Rear Board
(197) Spine
(198) Fore Edge
(199) Scale
(200) Color Palette