In addition to a graduation chamber piece Pálsson wrote his BA thesis on Estonian composer Arvo Pärt about whom he has later given lectures and radio programs.
[8] Since returning to Iceland, Pálsson's music frequently depicts movements in nature paralleled to similar processes within human psyche,[9] particularly present in Quake,[10] a piece for solo cello and chamber orchestra.
Its premiere was in the Elbphilharmonie, conducted by Jonathan Stockhammer, and then in the Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles by the LA Phil New Music Group at the Reykjavík Festival.
[12] For the opening ceremony of CYCLE Music and Art Festival[13] in Kópavogur, August 2015 Pálsson built his string orchestra piece Spiegeltunnel on a mirror sculpture of the same title by Ólafur Elíasson ("a conceptual Danish-Icelandic artist concerned with sensorial experience and perception").
The title piece, written for Una Sveinbjarnardóttir on solo violin and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ilan Volkov, was premiered at Dark Music Days 2013.