Jón Leifs

Jón Leifs (1 May 1899 – 30 July 1968) was an Icelandic composer, pianist, and conductor.

Jón Leifs was born Jón Þorleifsson, at the farm Sólheimar, then in the Austur-Húnavatnssýsla, northwestern Iceland. He left for Germany in 1916 to study at the Leipzig Conservatory. He graduated in 1921 having studied piano with Robert Teichmüller, but decided not to embark on a career as a pianist, devoting his time instead to conducting and composing. During this period he also studied composition with Ferruccio Busoni, who urged him to "follow his own path in composition".

In the 1920s Jón Leifs conducted a number of symphony orchestras in Germany, Czechoslovakia, Norway and Denmark, thus becoming the only internationally successful Icelandic conductor to date, although he failed to obtain a fixed position. During a tour of Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland with the Hamburger Philharmoniker, he gave the very first symphonic concerts in Iceland in the summer of 1926 (a total of 13 concerts with different programmes). During this period, he was also very active as a writer on music and musical interpretation, both in German and Icelandic. Between 1925 and 1928, he travelled to Iceland on three occasions to record folk songs among the population in his home county Húnavatnssýsla in North Iceland. His observations on this were published in both Icelandic and German periodicals.

Beginning with piano arrangements of Icelandic folk songs, Jón Leifs started an active career as a composer in the 1920s. From the 1930s he concentrated his efforts on the composition of large orchestral works, some of which were not performed until after his death. Most of his output is inspired by Icelandic natural phenomena. In the piece Hekla he depicts the eruption of the volcano Hekla which he witnessed. Dettifoss (Op. 57) was inspired by Dettifoss, Europe’s most powerful waterfall. In the Saga Symphony he musically portrays five characters from the classic Icelandic sagas.

In 1935 Jón Leifs was appointed Musical Director of the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service. However, having found it difficult to implement his vision for the radio service, he resigned from the post in 1937 and returned to Germany.

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