Ólafur Vignir Albertsson, Guðrún Tómasdóttir // Íslensk þjóðlög (traditional songs)

// CD // 1979 // sung in Icelandic // Traditional music // 26 tracks // 47 minutes //

Ólafur Vignir Albertsson, on piano, and Guðrún Tómasdóttir, on vocals, have recorded this collection of classics of Icelandic traditional music, which owe their texts to the finest poets of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as the very prolific Guðmundur Bergthórsson (1657-1705), Jóhann Sigurjónsson (1880-1919) or the more contemporary Orn Arnarson (1884-1942). Other authors also had other activities, such as the explorer and naturalist Eggert Olafsson (1726-1768), the priest Hallgrímur Pétursson (1614-1674), also a creator of stained glass windows still visible in Akureyri, Jón Þorláksson (1744-1819), also a priest but also a translator from English and German, the naturalist Jonas Hallgrimsson (1807-1845), and the only woman in the collection, Rósa Guðmundsdóttir (1795-1855), poet and... midwife. The aria that sets her text to music is one of the most poignant in the album.