The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1957, Qupperneq 29

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
27
The Music Selection
The innovation in our last issue in
publishing an Icelandic poem, set to
music by an Icelander and translated
into English, preferably by an Ice-
lander, has proved very popular—one
could say that it has received general
acclaim.
The selection this time is VogguljoS,
by Johann Magnus Bjarnason, set to
music by John Fridfinnson and trans-
lated by Paul Bjarnason.
Johann Magnus Bjarnason is the
leading fiction writer, writing in Ice-
landic, whom the Icelanders of Am-
erica have produced. His best known
novels are Eirfkur Hansson, the locale
of which is Nova Scotia, where Magnus
lived for a short while before coming
out west, and Braziliufararnir, The
Adventurers in Brazil. But Magnus
Bjarnason was also a poet, and wrote
some touching lyrics such as the one
selected.
John Fridfinnson may be said to be
the second composer of music among
our people in the West; in fact his
first instructions were received from
Gunnsteinn Eyjolfsson to whom he
sent his earliest compositions for con-
structive review.
John was born in Iceland in 1865
and migrated with his parents to Can-
ada in 1876. They settled in what was
then New Iceland and John was one
of those who survived the small pox
epidemic that ravaged the district the
following year. The family moved
back to Winnipeg a few years later
and at the age of twenty John home-
steaded in the Argyle district. There he
married Anna Johnson, and in 1905
he moved with his family to Win-
nipeg. He died in 1931.
T61f Songlog, Twelve Songs, by
John Fridfinnson, were published in
Reykajvik in 1904 and in 1921 John
published a book of songs called Ljos-
alfar, Elfin Beams, which contained
most of his best known compositions.
It has been estimated that John Frid-
finnson composed well over fifty songs
and in addition some orchestral music.
His son, Fred, who, incidentally, in-
herited some of his fathers musical
ability, has a few of his unpublished
works, some of which this magazine
hopes to publish. He also has a few
individual selections in sheet music
form which he would be glad to loan
or even present to persons interested.
Paul Bjarnason needs no intro-
duction to readers of The Icelandic
Canadian. Suffice to say that in the
October-December 1956 issue of Eim-
reiSin, acknowledged to be the leading
periodical published in Iceland, there
is a deservedly laudatory article by
IndfriSli IndriSason of the staff of
EimreiSin, on the literary work of
Paul Bjarnason as a poet and a trans-
lator. There is due emphasis on his
equal facility in translating from Ice-
landic to English and English to Ice-
landic.
The translation of the three verses
and the two original verses not in the
music text itself follow.
As VogguljoS is so popular it was
felt that the music, arranged for a
quartette, should follow the solo and
piano texts.