http://www.rimur.is/?i=89

I've just come across this article here about traditional Icelandic
styles of singing and "chanting". It offers some background to the
early recordings at Ísmús -- http://ismus.musik.is/ -- which Haukur
pointed out to me. According to this, the idea of more than one
person chanting together was a relatively late phenomenon, not
attested in medieval sources. (I did find one possible instance of
multiple people chanting, in Mána þáttr skálds, but that probably
doesn´t count as a formal recitation.) Further afield, it´s been
suggested that the Old English poem Widsiþ implies two singers
performing, maybe taking verses in turn.

Apparently there were two main strands to Icelandic singing, with
some overlap of features. One quote here uses the terms 'kvæðalög'
and 'rímnalög', the former consisting of more distinct tunes used
for shorter songs in various genres, while the latter implies a half-
spoken chant with less melodic range, used for the long
rímur "rhyming ballads", many based on sagas, or themselves going
back to the Middle Ages. Kvæðalög, song tunes, might be passed on
and disseminated across the country, but the rímnalög were very
diverse; not only were there local peculiarities, but each performer
had their own very individual style which might vary according to
mood and occasion. In fact, I remember in some of the recordings at
Ísmús the performer is said to be mimicking the style of some other
(presumably famous) chanter.

I don't suppose the early wax cylenders stretched to recording a
whole saga, but I wonder if there are any descriptions of
traditional saga reading, and how ancient verse forms were performed
then when embedded in a prose text.

Llama Nom