The Hidden People

Elf houses near Strandakirkja in south Iceland.  Image source: Wikipedia

After completing a draft of the first movement for my first string quartet earlier this semester, I have been focusing my composition efforts on the "pocket concerto" I am writing for solo violin and chamber orchestra. The score is due at the end of the semester (slightly under three weeks from now), and so I have been busy making progress.

Because Gróa Margrét—the soloist I am lucky enough to have for the premiere of this piece—is from Iceland, I wanted to include some aspect of Icelandic culture in the music. I was initially interested in finding an Icelandic folktale to use as the basis of the concerto, a narrative to inspire the music. I spent some time looking through some collections at the University of Hartford's library. Rather unsurprisingly, there are quite a number of Icelandic sagas in addition to a plethora of shorter stories. Gróa was also kind enough to photocopy some short stories from a collection she owns.

While I did not find a particular story that I wanted to use, it was certainly not due to a lack of fascinating material. My concerto cannot be longer than 10 minutes, and the performing ensemble is a chamber orchestra, neither of which suggests an epic musical saga. However, I was captivated by one recurring theme—the idea of hidden people.

As it turns out, hidden people—think of them as little elves if you're having a hard time picturing something hidden—are a pretty big deal in Iceland. Building roads around their homes is nothing unusual in Iceland. There has even been a documentary made about them:

I was unaware of the significance of the hidden people in Icelandic culture before I started working on the concerto, and while I would still hardly consider myself any sort of authority on the subject, knowing that these hidden people are more than just a fairy tale told to children has made me all the more excited about writing this piece.

As I am still in the process of crafting the piece, I won't go into too many details at this point in time. (I do hope to write about the music in greater detail once the composition has been completed, and especially after I have a recording.) But barring some significant structural changes, the concerto—which I am titling Huldufólk, the Icelandic word for hidden people—will be based primarily on an original theme that was inspired by the notion of these hidden people dancing about undetected. When I met with Gróa a couple weeks ago to share what I had been working on, I recorded her playing this theme, which I now present to you:


The full piece will be premiered along with the other five "pocket concertos" February 13, 2013, at 8 pm in Millard Auditorium at the Hartt School.