A series of compositions with the title Sonorities, written during the 1960’s and 70’s, deal with the European avant- garde’s development of piano music. Among the methods that are used are aleatorism, graphic notation, and treatment of the piano sound through, for example, prepared strings. Sonorities III (1972) for piano and tape is characteristic in several ways. The score of this thirteen-minute work is very concise and mostly contains material for improvisation. The tape is a collage of voices, percussion sounds and echoes. The collage idea is again predominant with rock rhythms and “Bartok-jazz” as important ingredients. Magnus Blondal Johannsson had considerable difficulty in being accepted as a respected composer during the 1960’s. His choice of medium was far too challenging for its time and for an audience who for the most part had been bom before the advent of symphony orchestra concerts. However, his electronic music to a series of films on Surtsey, the new volcanic island off the south coast of Iceland that came into being in 1963, attracted much attention and was positively received. In the early 70’s he composed a ballet Frost Roses, for speech choir, instruments, electronic equipment and light organ. For a greater part of the 1970’s he was silent as a composer, partly because of poor health and difficult personal circumstances. As far as Magnus Blondal Johannsson was concerned, music and the musical scene were past stages of his life. In 1980 however, he emigrated to the U.S.A. and gradually began to compose again. But now it was a completely differ- ent kind of music, which was far-removed from any avant- garde ambitions. He created slow, tantalizingly beautiful but at the same time threateningly brooding pieces for synthes- izer under the title Atmos. The character of these works is predominantly that of meditative music. In 1981 he com- posed an Adagio for string orchestra and a little percussion. This work also radiates a naive neo-simplicity that is a com- plete contrast to the somewhat nervous variety of the Musica Nova years. The most convincing work of this American period is Solitude for solo flute (1983), written for Manuela Wiesler. This is a long, free and very personal introverted soliloquy.

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