Iceland’s study of music, known as musicology, began to take shape in the twentieth century. For a long time, the preservation of legends, poetry, and folktales took priority, while music traditions were slower to be collected and formally analysed. Interest in Icelandic song heritage began in the late 1800s, evolving into a field where academics, musicians, and researchers explored the country’s unique soundscape.
Collecting folk traditions and early scholarship
Serious collection of Icelandic folk songs started in the late nineteenth century, though early efforts met with criticism for inaccurate transcription. One milestone came with a large reference work nearly 1000 pages long, documenting songs from both handwritten sources dating back hundreds of years and examples recorded directly from local singers. This publication combined historical songs, printed church music, and melodies that had survived in oral tradition. Although later analysis challenged the quality of some earlier transcriptions, the contribution to Icelandic music scholarship was widely recognised.
The effort to document the nation’s singing included recording local performers using wax cylinders in the 1910s and 1920s. This was expanded by Jón Leifs, a composer who travelled from Germany on several occasions to gather Icelandic song on these early devices, some of which are now accessible to listeners in digital archives. Recordings made in the 1930s in California also captured the voices of Icelandic expatriates, creating a bridge between Iceland’s musical past and its diaspora.
Growth of academic study and a new generation
In the mid-1900s, Iceland saw its first musicologists with formal university training. These scholars authored books on the nation’s music history and produced research on topics ranging from medieval manuscripts to traditional singing styles and hymn tunes. Some important figures also introduced Icelandic music to international audiences through dictionary entries and biographies. The archive of folk music swelled with further recordings and interviews, especially after the 1960s, as researchers spoke with older generations to capture ethnographic detail before it was lost.
The last decades of the twentieth century and the early 2000s saw a younger group of academics turning their focus to the evolution of Icelandic music, including choral traditions, modernism, jazz, and the role of music in national identity. Their work has included histories of classical music, studies of the impact of artists forced to flee to Iceland, and new perspectives on local singing customs. Efforts to preserve and interpret this legacy continued through the founding of Icelandic music archives and museums, though recent years have also brought concerns about resources and the future of research positions in this field.
International scholars have increasingly contributed to the study of Icelandic music, analysing everything from the modern pop icon Björk to the scores of contemporary composers. Several foreign researchers have made Iceland their home for long periods, adding both insider and outsider insights to the growing body of academic work about the nation’s music.
