Edda: Myths from Medieval Iceland

CD (total time 76:52)

Recorded in November 1996 in the church at Skálholt (Iceland)

Released 1999 by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi / BMG Classics (05472773812)

Booklet 105 pp.

 

Benjamin Bagby has always been interested in Iceland, and in fact he lived & worked on that mysterious North Atlantic island during summers as a student, studying the language. It is only natural that his passion for medieval music would find an outlet in the many medieval texts preserved by the Icelanders. In this project (which was staged as a music-drama production in Luxembourg in 1995) the myths of the ‘Edda’ are interwoven, to tell the stories of creation, destruction, and of the gods Odin, Thor and Baldur. Bagby, Thornton and Gaver are joined by long-time colleague Lena Susanne Norin for this first great reconstruction project of a lost musical repertoire, for which Bagby’s work in Icelandic archives was the basis. The philological guiding light in this project was the Icelandic scholar Heimir Pálsson, and the CD was recorded in the church at Skálholt, in Iceland, a place rich in history.