Jon Leifs (1899-1968) once averred “Wagner... misunderstood the essence and artistic tradition of the North in... a detestable manner” (Goran Bergendal, New Music in Iceland; Reykjavik: 1987). Many of his works – not least this First Symphony (written in Germany during 1941-2) – were conceived as a protest against that misunderstanding. Leifs’s stance was derided in his lifetime after isolated and uncomprehending performances. The symphony typically has an uncompromising, primitivistic sound-world, employing tuned anvils, specially made wooden drums (without skins, hammered by huge mallets), iron and wooden shields, rocks of differing sizes approximating different pitches, and replica Bronze Age horns (or lurs). Nearly 30 years after his death, enough of his output has received sufficient exposure for a tradition to evolve, at least in Iceland.
This is the first complete recording of the Saga Symphony (as it is commonly known). Those who own the 1975 Icelandic LP (never generally available in the UK), conducted by Sibelius’s son-in-law Jussi Jalas no less, will notice that Leifs’s depictions of five characters from skaldic literature were cut by roughly 15 per cent in an unsympathetic account delivering only a fraction of the composer’s vision. The Iceland SO of 1995 are better attuned, and a much finer band. Their reading under Osmo Vanska, in a recording of astonishing clarity, is nothing short of revelatory.
It must be conceded that there is little conventional development or counterpoint, but however brusque or awkward it all seems (echoes of critical misperceptions of Havergal Brian or Ives here), Saga Symphony is extremely effective, as the scherzo, “Bjorn behind Kari”, or the nightmarish intermezzo, “Glamr og Grettir”, manifestly confirm. This issue is a massive act of restitution, both for its much-maligned composer and the culture – which is not nearly so remote as it might seem – that produced him. An essential buy.'