WITH a population smaller than Wan Chai and a glorious one square kilometre of space for every single resident, a defiantly individualistic tradition and an unspoilt landscape of glaciers and geysers, Iceland could hardly be more different from Hong Kong.
But three Icelanders are hoping to give Hong Kongers a taste of Scandinavian chamber music in what they describe as the first such concert to be performed in the territory.
The group call themselves Rimur - an Icelandic word for a traditional form of rhyming poetry - and will play a selection of contemporary classical pieces from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland. And included in their repertoire is a piece by Josef Fung, the only Hong Kong-Icelandic composer in the world.
Fung, who is also performing, cheerfully admits he is probably the only Hong Kong-Icelandic anything in the world. And the three musicians in Rimur represent nearly half of the Icelandic community in Hong Kong, which stands at a grand total of seven.
Given these quaint statistics, the three Icelander musicians - Kristin Jakobsdottir, David Jatuardursson and Josef Fung - decided early on to expand the concert to include all five Scandinavian countries. The idea was not just to introduce the sound to Hong Kong, but to give something back to the Scandinavian population in the territory.
The music varies from the 'thick, dramatic' tones of the Finnish pieces by Toivo Kuula and Berhard Crussell, to the 'sweetness' of the Swedish pieces by Erland von Koch and Hugo Alfven. All the pieces are relatively bleak, in keeping with the Scandinavian stereotype, but some are more bleak than others. The Finns are the gloomiest, but Iceland isn't far behind.
The sense of melancholy is palpable in the songs they use to comfort their children. 'There is a lullaby in Iceland about a mother who leaves her baby to die in the snow because there is no food in the house,' says Jatuardsson. 'That used to be quite common. Not now, I hasten to add.' According to Jatuardsson, you have to know each country to understand how these national characteristics express themselves in music. 'It is hard to explain to outsiders,' he says.
