Piano Solo - Level 3 - Digital Download
SKU: A0.1431316
By Keith Terrett. By Petur Alberg. Arranged by Keith Terrett. 20th Century,Classical,Contest,Festival,Instructional,Traditional. Score. 3 pages. Keith Terrett #1011784. Published by Keith Terrett (A0.1431316).
An arrangement of the Faroese National Anthem for Piano.
T alfagra land mtt (Thou fairest land of mine), officially Mtt alfagra land (My fairest land), is the national anthem of the Faroe Islands. It was written in 1906 by headteacher Smun av Skari, and the melody was composed in 1907 by violinist Petur Alberg.
The song was written in a work dated 1 February 1906 by Smun av Skari, the headmaster of a high school in Fgruli, southwest of Klaksvk. It was written during a time of strong division in the Faroe Islands between conservatives who wanted to preserve Danish rule and autonomists who wanted more self-government, of which Smun was the latter.
Violinist Petur Alberg wrote the first notes of the music of the anthem on 4 September 1907, after the melody came to him that evening. He later sang the melody down the phone in the Lgting to Smun av Skari, who liked it. Petur then sent it to a music teacher he knew in Akureyri, Iceland, and to asked him to harmonise it for a male quartet. In October 1907, the male quartet arrangement arrived, and singers began to practice it for a Boxing Day concert in Sloan's Hall in Trshavn. Petur, not daring to reveal the song's author, told the singers the song was Icelandic, by a certain Jn Sveinsson. However, the singers liked the song. The song was performed at the concert on 26 December 1907, which was the first time any song by Petur had been performed publicly and the first time T alfagra land mtt was performed publicly.
On 8 January 1908, T alfagra land mtt was published in the Faroese newspaper Tingakrossur. It was then published in the Lesibk, a literary history in chronological order, in 1911. It was later published in many editions of the Songbk Froya flks (Faroese People's Songbook), generally in the number one position, from 1913 through 1959.
In 1925, a Nynorsk translation of the song by Rolf Hjort Schgen was published in the Tingakrossur. In 1928, a Danish translation by university student Tormod Jrgensen was published in Hjskolebladet No. 7928.[1][2] An Icelandic translation by Jochum M. Eggertsson appeared in the magazine Dvl in 1935. The same year, a German translation by Ernst Krenn was published in the Froyahefti (Faroese Instalment), a Faroese booklet at the Nordic Society in Vienna, Austria. In 1943, an English translation by Padre G. C. C. Knowleson was featured in the notes of the magazine The Pioneer by some British soldiers in the Faroe Islands during World War II. As the national anthem T alfagra land mtt won out in a rivalry with Eg oyggjar veit (I know some islands), from 1877, on which song should become the national anthem of the Faroe Islands. T alfagra land mtt has been sung at all festivals in the Faroe Islands, and it has been in the psalm book of the Faroese Church since 1990. The national radio station tvarp Froya, established in 1957, played it every night before ending its broadcast for the evening.
