Marianne Clausen
Her main achievement, begun in collaboration with her father in the early 1970s, intensified during the 1990s, and concluded just weeks before her death, was the preservation of traditional Faroese folk singing, which she presented in a number of large volumes with music notation transcriptions of sound recordings.
Based on more than 6,000 such recordings, collected by many different scholars, including herself, throughout the entire 20th century, she published around 3,350 music notation examples of various genres of traditional Faroese singing, together with hitherto unpublished song texts, as well as historical and musicological analyses.
He went to the islands several times with a tape recorder to collect, first of all, examples of the religious, spiritual singing, known as Kingo-singing, which had so far not received much attention from collectors.
Her father discovered that she possessed a special talent, surpassing his own, for writing down accurately and unbiased, as regards musical harmonics and scales, the melodies that were sung in the recordings.
Following her failed first marriage, which was insecure and traumatic, and the death of her father not long after, Marianne Clausen went through some years around 1980 with alcohol abuse.
Before embarking on her principal work (see next section), she undertook the project of writing down in music the compositions of Faroese poet and composer Regin Dahl (1918-2007).
Djurhuus, Christian Matras, Jóannes Patursson, Mikkjal á Ryggi and Símun av Skarði, the Norwegians Knut Hamsun and Nordahl Grieg, the Dane Jeppe Aakjær and the Swedes Gustaf Fröding and Erik Axel Karlfeldt, as well as many others.
Her own recordings, combined with those of earlier collectors, formed the basis for her next volume, published 2010, Vísuløg í Føroyum - Danish Folk Ballads in the Faroes.
Prior to Marianne Clausen's work, the tonality of the Faroese kvæði melodies were treated in two important studies, by Hjalmar Thuren in 1908[15] and by Hakon Grüner-Nielsen in 1945.
Melodies for spiritual singing have a highly varied tonal material, including major and minor scales, but are also strongly influenced by Church modes, that are believed to stem from Gregorian chant from when the Faroese were Catholics, in the 16th century and earlier.
A total of 456 Faroese folk singers contributed melody examples to the 3,350 music transcriptions in the four books of Marianne Clausen's magnum opus.
She never used admission examination for new choir members, but allowed potentially talented singers with mediocre singing skills the necessary time to improve, under her close watch.
Over the years, the choir steadily grew, both in number of members and singing skills, and was, from the mid 1990s and onwards, able to take up larger pieces, like Orff's Carmina Burana, Vivaldi's Gloria, and Dvorak's Mass in D major.
- Marita Akhøj Nielsen, chairman of the UJDS publishing society (speech given at memorial ceremony in Føroyahúsið in Copenhagen, 10 Feb. 2015) When I joined the Con Brio choir and met Marianne, it was like coming home.
Book reviews:[5][6][31] Regin Dahl (1996): Atlantsløg, edited by Marianne Clausen and Zakarias Wang, 282 pp, Stiðin (contains 369 melody transcriptions).
Book reviews:[33][34][35] Marianne Clausen (2010): Vísuløg í Føroyum / Danish folk ballads in the Faroes, 506 pp, Universitets-Jubilæets Danske Samfund, No.
Book reviews:[39][40] Marianne Clausen (2014): Føroya Ljóð / Sound of the Faroes, 319 pp, with two cds, Stiðin (primer with 280 of her previously published melody transcriptions).
): Árbók 1990 Norðurlandahúsið í Føroyum Marianne Clausen (2000): Åndelig visesang og Kingosang på Færøerne, p. 79-100 in: Hymnologiske Meddelelser, 2000, no.
1, Salmehistorisk Selskab og Nordisk Institut for Hymnologi Marianne Clausen (2000): Åndelig visesang - en del af forfatternes kulturelle ballast, p. 35-45 in: Malan Marnersdóttir & Turið Sigurðardóttir (eds.
): Úthavsdagar (Oceaniske dage), Annales Societatis Scientiarum Færoensis Supplementum XXIX, 221 pp, Føroya Fróðskaparfelag and Nordens Hus på Færøerne, ISBN 99918-41-29-6 Marianne Clausen (2006): Spiritual Songs and Kingo Singing in the Faroe Islands, p. 197-226 in: Kirsten Sass Bak & Svend Nielsen (eds.
): Spiritual Folk Singing – Nordic and Baltic Protestant Traditions, 284 pp, Forlaget Kragen, ISBN 87-89160-11-8 Ole Brinth, Peter Balslev-Clausen, Sigvald Tveit, David Scott Hamnes, Guðrun Laufey Guðmundsdóttir, Marianne Clausen, Folke Bohlin & Erkki Tuppurainen (2008): Melodierne til Luthers salmer i Norden, p. 449-534 in: Sven-Åke Selander & Karl-Johan Hansson (eds.
): Martin Luthers psalmer i de nordiska folkens liv, Arcus, Lund, ISBN 978-91-88553-16-4 Marianne Clausen (2008): Den færøske Luther-sang, p. 583-590 in: Sven-Åke Selander & Karl-Johan Hansson (eds.
): Martin Luthers psalmer i de nordiska folkens liv, Arcus, Lund, ISBN 978-91-88553-16-4 Shortly after her death, Marianne Clausen's Faroese translator Martin Fjallstein initiated a memorial evening, which was held on 10 February 2015 in Føroyahúsið in Copenhagen, with the participation of her two choirs Con Brio and Húsakórið, as well as the Mpiri choir, which she helped to get started.
[45] In May 2018, Fróðskaparsetur Føroya (University of the Faroes), began uploading on their website many of the sound recordings, which had formed the basis of Marianne Clausen's work.
