Magnús Einarsson

Few, if any, have had as great an influence on the musical life of a single place as Magnús Einarsson (often called Magnús the organist) had on Akureyri at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. He taught singing, founded and conducted choirs and brass bands, composed music and fundamentally transformed the musical life of the town. Despite this, he never became wealthy but was above all an idealist.

Magnús was probably born in the summer of 1848, though sources do not entirely agree on his birth date. He was born and raised in Köldukinn in Suður-Þingeyjarsýsla in dire poverty where there were few opportunities for education. It soon became clear that Magnús had singing talent, but it was not apparent that he would pursue music professionally. He initially worked as a sailor and laborer, but around the age of twenty he had the opportunity to study organ for a few months with Reverend Ólafur Pálsson at Melstað in Miðfirði.

Magnús moved to Akureyri in 1875, and two years later he went to Reykjavík and studied organ and violin along with singing theory under Jónas Helgason for a two-month period. He then became organist at Akureyri Church that same year, 1877, and around the same time he founded the singing society Gígjuna, a mixed choir in Akureyri. He also conducted another singing society in Akureyri and a third one in Lögmannshlíðarsókn, though it appears these did not have names.

In 1881 Magnús moved to Húsavík where he worked for about five years. There he taught harmonium, which he had brought with him and used during church services, and this was the first such instrument played during church singing in Húsavík. He also introduced four-part church singing in the place and conducted a youth singing society that performed publicly several times.

In 1886 Magnús returned to Akureyri and resumed his former position as organist, a position he held until 1911. He continued to conduct the singing society Gígjuna and also taught organ and singing at Barnaskólinn in Akureyri. He also taught some singing at Barnaskólinn in Möðruvellir near outer Eyjafjörður. For a time he must have conducted the Table Society Quartet and the Printing House Quartet, which later merged with Gígjuna into a new unified choir of which Magnús was one of the founders, the Singing Society Geysi (later the Men's Choir Geysi), which was established in 1922.

Magnús had applied for a grant to travel abroad to further his musical education, and he went to Copenhagen in the winter of 1893-94. When he returned from Denmark, he brought with him several wind instruments that had been given to him, and these were put to good use in the Akureyri Brass Section, which he had founded the autumn before. This first Akureyri brass band did not last long.

Magnús composed music, and in 1898 a play was staged in Akureyri that included music by him. Magnús was also a talented poet and composed many poems; he was known, for example, for his improvised verses. He also wrote about music and several articles by him were published in the journal Gjallarhorn in 1904 and 1905.

In 1900 the Singing Society Hekla was founded and Magnús became its conductor. The choir went on a singing tour to Norway in the autumn of 1905, the first Icelandic choir to do so, and it received great attention as this was considered a great achievement. The choir operated until 1907, when Magnús was made an honorary member. That same year, 1907, a new brass band was founded under Magnús's direction called the Brass Band Hekla (the same name as the choir), and it operated well into the fourth decade of the century, after which the Brass Band Akureyri was founded from it. Magnús probably played the cornet in the band himself.

He taught singing at the primary school until 1915, when he was awarded an honorarium for his contribution to the art of singing in Akureyri. Around the same time he stopped conducting the brass band. He had begun conducting a choir in Glæsibæjarhreppi in 1910, which went by the name Singing Society Geysir. It is not known how long he conducted this choir. From 1919 to 1922 he still conducted a choir which was most likely unnamed. Magnús died in 1934.