De Lumine – Icelandic Works for Solo Violin

The solo works for violin by Hjálmar H. Ragnarsson, Hugi Guðmundsson and ­Viktor Orri Árnason ­presented on De ­Lumine were all commisioned by Sif ­Margrét Tulinius in 2020 and premièred by her soon after in the concert series Bach & Modernity.

The series comprised three ­concerts ­including these contemporary works alongside ­Johann Sebastian Bach’s three 1720 Sonatas for solo violin. This ­created a musical conversation between ­composers 300 years apart.

The Icelandic composers span three generations and are all well established in their fields. Their solo works for ­violin reveal clearly the different characters of each composer. The only ­guideline for the commissions was that they did not include any electronics – to retain a lose connection to Bach’s compositions. Otherwise the composers had complete compositional freedom to explore the ­violin’s endless musical and technical ­possibilities. De Lumine is the world premiére ­recording of these new works. In march 2025 De Lumine was chosen Record of the year 2024 by the Icelandic Music Awards.