Rimur is a kind of "sung Poetry" and is closely related to the epic singing traditions of early Europe.
Rimur singing is similar to vocal chanting from the Middle East, but the forms are not related and unlike the Arabic counterpart the "sung poetry" of Iceland has no tonal scale but is a free-form wave of sound.
Using Rimur singing as a basis Sveinbjorn almost single-handed re-created the art of epic singing used by Scandinavian poets of pre-Christian times, who created such masterpieces as Voluspa and Beowulf (Bjolfskvitda).
World Music Central: Viking Ice And Epic Sagas(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
The rimur were recorded in the Icelandic language and at varying settings including a church, the Salurinn Concert Hall and a small household using portable state of the art equipment.
In the distant past, rimur were performed outside in fields and in sleeping lofts.
And rimur proved to be a popular form of entertainment during the Middle Ages and contemporary times despite the Christian church's ban on these epic tales.
Steindor Andersen : Rimor - Listen, Review and Buy at ARTISTdirect(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
This is a collection of Icelandic epic and proverbs set to musical poetry by Steindor Andersen, one of the top proponents of the rimur form and a previous collaborator with Sigur Ros.
While rimur is essentially a solo vocal form sung at gatherings, the dimensions of the sound are usually done in nonreverberant locations.
Hilmarsson took the opportunity of this recording to explore how rimur sounded in large churches, small lofts, and all points in-between.
Sigurd Bardarson performing Icelandic songs, April, 1940(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
"[Rimur are] verses of varying length and form often with extremely intricate rhyme schemes.
Rimur do not require the effort of singing nor the monotony of chanting--that man is best at kvetha [singing, reciting] who performs most effortlessly.
Sigurd Bardarson was born in Litla Hrauni, Iceland.
MSN Encarta - Multimedia - Icelandic Folk Epic(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
In Iceland, long epic ballads called rimur were originally sung to simple melodies or spoken in a sing-song style.
Comprised of thousands of verses with many stories and characters, they were often written down and read as family entertainment in the evenings.
"Rimur og kvaedalög" performed by Gisli Helgason from Islandica: Songs and Dances from Iceland (Cat.# Arc EUCD 1187) (p)1991 ARC Music Productions International Ltd. All rights reserved.
Steindor Andersen is one of a very few remaining masters of rimur (a form of Icelandic epic song and chant).
Born in 1954, he took a relatively early liking to the poetry on which the chanting is based, which led to a membership in IDUNN, a society devoted to the preservation of rimur, from where he soon began chanting as well.
His talents soon became known, leading to concerts, recordings, and appearances largely throughout Iceland, culminating in a collaboration with the Icelandic supergroup Sigur Rós, which earned him a surprising amount of notoriety for an otherwise ignored form.
Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine: Steindor Andersen Rimur. - Brief Article - sound recording review(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
For a form that was first recorded over a century ago, and has a documented history dating to the 14th century, Icelandic rimur singing is, to all intents and purposes, unknown outside the north Atlantic island.
A full rimur performance can last 40 hours or more, meaning it's not for the faint of heart (or those who like their sleep).
The texts here come largely from 19th Century rimur poets (with a sprinkling of 18th Century), and while lyrics are given, it's perhaps unfortunate that there's no English translation, rather than just a short precis of each piece.
The recordings were collected around Iceland in the homes of farmers, grandmothers and fishermen that still lived in the old tradition or could remember some of the old songs that had been sung in Iceland for generations.
Icelanders wanted to be regarded as a high cultural european country but in comparison to Mozart our folk music heritage of chanting rimur made us look quite primitive.
People turned against it and the tradition was almost lost and erased and turned into a symbol of our years of depression and hunger.
Introduction(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
Gradually the limited and complicated material associated with kvea in the narrower sense became the main subject of the research resulting finally in this book.
Besides the 250 rimur -melodies printed at the end of the book, all other genres are represented, divided roughly into three classes: secular songs, sacred songs, and twin-songs (tvísöngur sung in parallel fifths with one or more crossings of the two parts).
In the first half of the 19th century only the two bowed instruments lángspil and fila were in use, mainly for accompaniment of singing.
RimurRimur CD A collection six eerie/medieval/folksy tracks from Icelandic superstars SIGUR ROS and vocalist STEINDOR ANDERSON (a celebrated Icelandic fisherman, who performed on the band's first North American tour).
A studio-recorded CD that was originally included as a bonus disc with Agaetis Byrjun.
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Iceland: Rimur, A Collection from Steindor Andersen CD - NAX-76031
Iceland: Rimur, A Collection from Steindor Andersen CD
Ríma (plural rímur) is a traditional form of narrative Icelandic epic song chanted or intoned in a specific manner called “ad kveda.” The inner structure and content can partially be traced to Eddic and Skaldic poetry of the Viking Age.
