María Brynjólfsdóttir

María (Sigríður) Brynjólfsdóttir was born in 1919, she lost her parents at a young age and was raised by foster parents in Akureyri where she first became acquainted with music. Illness afflicted her for a long time in her younger years as she suffered from tuberculosis and was therefore long unable to work, she studied piano with Árni Kristjánsson for a time while she was able despite the illness, but that must have been the only musical instruction she received in those days.

María began composing songs early and was clearly one of the first women in this country to do so. Those compositions did not gain much recognition at first and in fact it was not until she was well past middle age that she made a proper name for herself in the field of composition, she later said in a radio interview that encouragement from Áskell Snorasson, a composer and choir director in Akureyri, had been of great value to her. She acquired a piano that Mr. Bjarni Þorsteinsson, a folk song collector in Siglufjörður, had owned and used it to compose, but when she moved south to Reykjavík around 1960 she had no access to an instrument for about ten years, when she then acquired an instrument she resumed her musical compositions.

María did not write notation but had the musician Carl Billich do it for her and in 1972 she sent out a booklet containing songs in notation, arranged for solo voice, choir and piano, which he had prepared for her. Subsequently two other such notation booklets came out in the seventies with nearly a hundred songs, but María had composed another one of the songs, many of which have however not been preserved as they should have been.

Many of María's songs have been released on records by solo singers and choirs, the song Glerbrot to a poem by Freysteinn Gunnarsson is probably her best-known song but other song titles such as Til komi ljósið, Úr daglega lífinu, Lestin brunar, Tvær litlar hendur, Blær í faxi, Spörfuglinn, Ef væri ég söngvari and Gamalt lag can also be mentioned. Jóhann Már Jóhannsson, Benedikt Benediktsson, Karlakór Keflavíkur, Samkór Mýramanna, Ásgerður Júníusdóttir and Skagfirska söngsveitin are among the performers who have released her songs on records. Furthermore, several of her songs have been recorded at Ríkisútvarpið and are preserved there.

María Brynjólfsdóttir died in 2005 at the age of eighty-six and her memory and musical compositions have been kept somewhat in the spotlight in recent years along with other hidden women in Icelandic music, including through concert performances.

Sources from Glatkistan