ABSTRACT
Icelandic musical traditions are a vital communicative force, on national and international levels; the persistence of certain aspects of Icelandic culture has been remarkable, but it is due to active, not passive, causes. Musicologists have studied the long-standing existence of tvisongur because of its possible bearing on the development of organum, a kind of parallel singing. Icelandic balladry is metrically related to danced rimur and other dances dating from as early as the 1200s. Religious authorities also inveighed against the style of religious singing in the service. The original Scandinavian and Celtic immigrants to Iceland brought with them their runic alphabets and a body of traditional lore, including fiction and history, plus the skills of the professional oral historian. Mainstream European musical instruments were imported by wealthier people since at least the 1700s, but their adoption by serious musicians as part of Icelandic music began to develop only during the late 1800s.
