Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.05.2011, Page 8

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 5 — 2011
Society | Egill Helgason
For many centuries Ice-
land was a country with-
out music. There were
no musical instruments;
dancing was banned by the church,
the only thing akin to music were
the rímur—long and rather mo-
notonous poems chanted to sim-
ple melodies. The rímur are quite
dreary—and Iceland was a desolate
place with bad weather, hunger,
darkness, pestilence and poverty.
There was very little fun to be had.
Compared to this, it is a privilege to
be born as an Icelander in the mod-
ern period.
This month will see great festivities in
Reykjavík. A new concert hall called
Harpan (“The Harp”) will open in the
first weeks of May. Many concerts
are on the schedule, the first one will
see the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra
playing for the first time at its future
venue. The conductor is Vladimir Ash-
kenazy, adopted son of Iceland, and
the soloist is the young piano virtuoso
Víkingur Heiðar Ólafsson. The program
consists of a piece by Icelandic com-
poser Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson, Grieg's
Piano Concerto and, to make it all very
festive, Beethoven’s 9th symphony.
A GLASS FACADE
The plan to build a concert house dates
back many decades. In the eighties,
the designated site was Laugardalur,
an area of sports venues and swim-
ming pools, but later it was decided
to build the house in the more spec-
tacular location by the old harbour in
Reykjavík. The house will dominate the
harbour—and not everybody agrees
on how beautiful it is. Some think it is
built in the taste of the banksters, the
modern day Vikings who are blamed
for bankrupting the country, with lots
of steel and glass. There was another
idea that came second in the compe-
tition for the building. This was by the
famous French architect Jean Nouvel
and called for the house to be built like
a grass hill—in harmony with Arnarhóll,
a grassy hill which stands in the centre
of town, right by the site of the concert
house.
Perhaps this idea was thought to be
too reminiscent of the time when most
Icelanders lived in houses made of mud
and grass, and so it didn’t have appeal
at the time.
In its final form, the house features
a huge glass facade that covers the
whole building, designed by the cel-
ebrated artist Ólafur Elíasson, who is
of Icelandic origin. Many wonder how
the glass will fare in the salty winds that
blow in Reykjavík for most of the year.
Local window cleaners need not worry
about the future.
A BILLIONARE WITH BIG PLANS
FOR REYKJAVÍK
The concert house was originally go-
ing to be built by the city of Reykjavík
and an organisation of music lovers,
but eventually a company owned by fi-
nancier Björgólfur Guðmundsson took
over the project. This was during the
banking boom in Iceland. The whole
area around the house was going to
be the stomping ground of Björgólfur
and his son, billionaire Björgólfur Thor.
Plans called for new and very futuris-
tic headquarters for the now infamous
Landsbanki, owned by the father and
son. They bought up a lot of old houses
downtown with the purpose of tearing
them down and building new and big-
ger houses instead, malls and offices
and even a University of the Arts, right
in the middle of Laugavegur, the main
shopping street.
Björgólfur was at this time seen as
a patron of the arts. He funded theatre,
concerts and galleries—but he also had
a populist slant for he was the owner
of the English football team West Ham
United. Always well groomed and a bit
of a dandy, Björgólfur, with his charm-
ing ways, was the man about town—and
by far the most popular of the financiers
who were revered by the nation at the
time.
But after the crash of 2008, his for-
tunes changed. All his companies went
bankrupt, and he himself suffered a
personal bankruptcy of almost 100 bil-
lion ISK. Suddenly everything about the
concert house seemed a total mess. No
real capital had been put into the proj-
ect; it was all on loan from Björgólfur's
now defunct bank. In October 2008, it
seemed that the house would remain
a big hole in the ground, a reminder of
the folly of the boom years. Now there is
speculation whether Björgólfur will be
invited to the festivities for the opening
of the house.
SPIRALLING COSTS
The city and the state eventually took
over the project which of course has
become much more expensive than in-
tended. Originally, the cost was project-
ed at about 12,5 billion Icelandic krónur,
now it is more like 27 billion. In a time of
crisis, when schools and healthcare are
being cut, this is bound to be a hotly de-
bated issue. But culture won out—many
were afraid we might see a repeat of
the National Theatre, just up the road
from the concert house. That building
was started in 1929 but then it took two
decades to finish. During the war it was
just a shell, used as a storage facility for
the British and the American forces.
There is also the question of how
to run the house. Will there be events
enough to pay for its day-to-day use?
Copenhagen, a much larger and
wealthier city, is struggling under the
weight of cultural houses built in the
last years, an opera, a large theatre, a
concert house. Programmes have had
to be cut because it is in fact cheaper to
have no activity at all in these houses.
Time will tell whether Harpa with its
1800 seats is too big for Reykjavík, but
presently the interest is great, most of
the events planned in the house are
sold out, including concerts of the Sym-
phony Orchestra and events planned
for the Reykjavík Art Festival. Later this
year we will also see popular interna-
tional artists playing there, such as Elvis
Costello and Cindy Lauper.
THE MODEST ORIGINS OF THE ISO
The Icelandic Symphony Orchestra is
used to a much more modest venue.
The orchestra is sixty years old, and
for most of its time it has played in
Háskólabíó, originally built as a cinema
on the grounds of the University. It is a
nice house in itself, but sometimes the
roof leaks and the acoustics are prob-
lematic. All the same, the orchestra has
grown in strength and prowess—it is ac-
tually very good. Conductors who come
here praise the orchestra, such as the
great Russian Gennady Rosdetsvensky,
who recently remarked it was one of the
better orchestras in the world.
Moving into a new concert house
will be a challenge for the orchestra—it
will face this challenge with a new main
conductor, young Israeli Ilan Volkov
who seems to be a very exiting musi-
cian.
THE INVALUABLE ASHKENAZY
It is no coincidence that Vladimir Ash-
kenazy will conduct the first concert in
the Harp. Ashkenazy was a piano prodi-
gy in the Soviet Union in the time of Sta-
lin and Khrushchev. He met and mar-
ried Icelander Þórunn Jóhannsdóttir,
who herself was a piano prodigy since
an early age, giving concerts when she
was a child, with ribbons in her hair and
lace dresses. She gave up her musical
career for his, and eventually he emi-
grated from the Soviet Union, becoming
an Icelandic citizen. Ashkenazy started
his conducting career with the ISO—
since it has taken him to concert halls
all over the world.
The Reykjavík Arts Festival is a spe-
cial chapter in this story, inextricably
linked to Ashkenazy. It was founded in
1970 and was a remarkable event from
the start. Ashkenazy got his musical
friends to come to Reykjavík and give
concerts, some came more than once.
Now this reads as a roster of twentieth
century greats: André Previn, Jacque-
line du Pré, Daniel Barenboim, Itzhak
Perlman, Mstislav Rostropovich were
among those featured—and Led Zep-
pelin also played in the first festival!
A THRIVING MUSIC SCENE
So we have gone from almost no mu-
sic to a blooming musical scene in little
more than a century. Icelandic music
is much more than Björk and Sigur
Rós. Music education is quite strong.
All kinds of music genres thrive side
by side, often fertilising each other. It
would be best if they all find shelter in
the Harp. May will see concerts with the
music of Gustav Mahler, but also sold
out concerts where Icelandic star and
showman, Páll Óskar, performs with the
ISO. Just now we are waiting for the big
moment, not only to see how the Harp
looks but also hear how it sounds!
Words
Egill Helgason
Illustration
Lóa Hjálmtýsdóttir
The Troubled History Of The Harp
The billionaire who wanted to rebuild Reykjavík, a house of glass and a very good orchestra
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