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Jón Leifs (bornJón Þorleifsson on 1 May 1899 – 30 July 1968) was anIcelandic composer, pianist, and conductor.
Jón Leifs was bornJón Þorleifsson, at the farmSólheimar, then in theHúnavatnssýsla,northwesternIceland.[1] He left for Germany in 1916 to study at theLeipzig Conservatory. He graduated in 1921 having studied piano withRobert 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 encountered the legendary pianist-composerFerruccio Busoni, who urged him to "follow his own path in composition".[2]
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,[1] although he failed to obtain a fixed position. During a tour of Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland with theHamburger Philharmoniker, he gave the very first symphonic concerts in Iceland in the summer of 1926 (a total of 13 concerts with different programmes).[1] 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 through Iceland on three occasions to record folk songs among the population in his home countyHúnavatnssýsla in Northern 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.[1] 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 pieceHekla he depicts the eruption of the volcanoHekla which he witnessed.Dettifoss (Op. 57) was inspired byDettifoss, Europe’s second most powerful waterfall. In theSaga Symphony he musically portrays five characters from the classicIcelandic sagas.
In 1935 Jón Leifs was appointed Musical Director of the IcelandicNational 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.[1]
Jón Leifs married the pianistAnnie Riethof soon after graduating from the Leipzig Conservatory.[1] They had two daughters,Snót Jónsdóttir andLíf Jónsdóttir, and made their home first inWernigerode. Since Riethof was Jewish, the family lived under constant threat of Nazi persecution. In 1944, the couple managed to obtain permission to leave Germany and moved toSweden with their daughters. However, by this time their marriage was showing signs of strain and they divorced in 1946. Jón Leifs later married, and divorced, a Swedish woman, Thea Andersson. His third wife, who survived him, wasÞorbjörg Jóhannsdóttir Leifs (1919–2008). She and Jón had one son, Leifur (1957–2022).
In 1945 Jón Leifs moved back to Iceland (leaving his family in Sweden), and became a fierce proponent of music education and of artists’ rights. This included working for the ratification by Iceland of theBerne Convention, which happened in 1947, and setting up the Performing Rights Society of Iceland (STEF) in 1948.[1]
In 1947 tragedy struck. Jón Leifs’ younger daughter Líf drowned in a swimming accident off the coast of Sweden in 1947, aged only eighteen. Overcome with grief, he composed four works dedicated to her memory,[3] includingRequiem Op. 33b for mixed choir, perhaps his most celebrated piece. The other works areTorrek Op. 33a, for solo voice and piano,Erfiljóð (In memoriam) Op. 35 for male choir, and the string quartetVita et mors Op. 36.
Jón Leifs composed his last work,Consolation, Intermezzo for string orchestra, as he had only weeks to live. He died of lung cancer inReykjavík in 1968.
Jón Leifs and his first wife are the subjects of the filmTears of Stone (Tár úr steini) (1995) by Icelandic directorHilmar Oddsson. A square in Bergholz-Rehbrücke (Nuthetal, Germany), where he lived with his family from the 1930s until 1944, is named after him. An English-language biography,Jón Leifs and the Musical Invention of Iceland, by the musicologistÁrni Heimir Ingólfsson, was published in 2019 and was listed as one of the year's most notable books by The New Yorker criticAlex Ross (music critic).[4]
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TheIceland Symphony Orchestra withEn Shao (cond.) has performedHekla Op.52[6] andDettifoss,[7] Op. 57.
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