Life and work

Halldór Jón Hansen was born in Reykjavík on June 12, 1927. He completed his medical degree from the University of Iceland and then went to New York for a master's degree, where he specialized in pediatrics and child psychiatry. After returning from the USA in 1960, he worked as a district doctor in Egilsstaðir for six months. He then moved to Reykjavík, where he worked at the Children's Mental Protection Department at the Reykjavík Health Center and took over the position of Chief Medical Officer of the Infant Control there on July 1, 1961, a position he held until he retired due to age.

For a while, Halldór was the chairman of the Association of Icelandic Pediatricians and a board member of the Association of Nordic Pediatricians and was made an honorary member of various medical associations. Halldór was always very interested in music, especially singing, and had a large record collection of classical music. From childhood, it was his passion to attend concerts and opera performances, first in Iceland, but later wherever he went in the world.

Singers who sang from the heart were always held in high esteem by Halldór, and some of the leading ones became his good friends, such as Gerard Souzay and Elly Ameling. He wrote a lot about singing and music in newspapers and magazines as well as repertoire for the Icelandic Opera. He taught at the Singing School in Reykjavík for years and was an artistic advisor to the Music Society in Reykjavík and the Icelandic Opera.

Many Icelandic singers benefited from Halldór's tutelage, borrowing albums, advice on vocal use or choosing projects. Halldór bequeathed the Iceland Academy of the Arts to his music museum and house. In addition, Halldór established a fund at the school, which will have the task of supporting young musicians and building the school's music library.

Halldór died on July 21, 2003, at the age of 76.

Text by Árna Tómas Ragnarsson

Halldór had an extremely warm and kind presence. He never put himself forward, speaking slowly and with great deliberation. He had a deep understanding of all things human and he avoided judging others for the longest time, so much so that it bordered on indifference. When I got to know him, he was rather tight on the field, a bit teddy-like in appearance, movements and all demeanor. Years ago he was tall and lanky, but then he smoked 3 packs a day and probably gained weight when he quit.

Halldór was a true citizen of the world, having spent his youth in Vienna, at a young age in Paris and later studied pediatrics in New York. These were always his favorite cities, his hometowns. However, he traveled around the world throughout his life, either because of his work as a doctor or to listen to music or to meet some of his many foreign friends, most of whom were involved in music, but mostly in the art of singing.

Halldór and I often talked about music and musicians. I am fired up and ranting, but Halldór is curious and thoughtful. It didn't matter what name I mentioned; Halldór would always add when I had finished: "He, yes he is a good artist. I met him in New York in 1953 and we have corresponded ever since". It has always puzzled me how the easy-going and unprogressive Halldór could have met such an angry bunch of people, many of them world-famous. But he was so true and humble and knew so many things and did not judge; that's why he sucked people to him.

But despite the large number of friends, I think that Halldór has always been very lonely. The music was his spousal, the albums his children. He did not marry and had no children and he was the last member of his family, so when he died he had no legal heir. Most of his parents' and siblings' possessions remained with him in his large house on Laufásvegin, along with the memories, many of which were reluctant or downright painful. When he died, I helped Halldór's aunt a little in cleaning up his house. It sprayed and sprayed with all kinds of stuff, but the atmosphere was mostly saturated with memories; memories of the grief of the family that had lived there and now had finally disappeared with Halldór. Apart from all the items, thousands of personal letters were left, either letters from Halldór himself, his parents or his siblings. Yes, it was actually both letters from them, but not only to them, because most of the time they wrote their letters with tracing paper copy.

Halldór never intended to become a doctor. After graduating, he planned to study curtain making for operas in Paris. He had been making puppets as a child, when his passion for opera was sparked, and firmly believed that this was what he was meant to do. But fate got in the way, his niece died when she was run over outside his home on Laufásveg. The girl's father and Halldór's brother had lived in the United States for several years, but joined the navy in World War II and drowned. Halldór's father, Halldór Hansen Sr., fought a fierce custody dispute over the child and eventually managed to bring him to Iceland, but a few weeks later the tragic accident happened. This incident had a terrible effect on Halldór's entire family, so much so that Halldór, who had traveled to Paris at the time, decided to stay with his people and "kill time" for the next few years by studying medicine.

After postgraduate studies in pediatrics in New York, Halldór returned to Iceland, but the dream of opera life had not disappeared; he was now finally going to Paris and picking up the thread that had previously disappeared. Then his plans went awry a second time; his mother died in 1961 and his father remarried a year later and wanted to sell the house and settle the mother's inheritance with his children. But Halldór's nanny, who had cared for him with great care in his youth, when he was very ill for long periods of time, was now old and blind. Halldór could not imagine that she would be sent to a retirement home and knew that she would not be able to save herself anywhere but in the house, where she had lived for decades. Halldór still let the family lead. He forgot about Paris, became the chief doctor in the children's department of the Health Protection Center, bought the house from his father and lived there with his nanny for the next few years and then alone after her death for the rest of his life.

 The house on Laufásveg

Halldór's father was Halldór Hansen senior, chief physician and highly regarded surgeon at Landakotsspítala; he was a man of valor, a great athlete, adored and admired. Ólafía, his wife and Halldór's mother, was quite different and inclined to spiritualism in her later years. Halldór Jr. was the youngest of four siblings, very different from his father in every way, and his life was always shaped by his severe illness (asthma) in his youth.

Shortly after the birth of Halldór the Younger, his father had a large house built outside on Laufásveg. It had two floors plus a basement. At the northern end of the building was a doctor's office and a waiting room. This house held a lot of history about Halldór and his family, but Halldór would have his home there for the rest of his life.

It is both strange and difficult to describe this home inside. When you entered the cave, you immediately felt that it was as if time had stood there decades before. The air was heavy and saturated with smoke (long after Halldór stopped smoking). The furniture was big and old, the carpets were worn and the walls hadn't been painted in a long time. Lighting was minimal, books, magazines, but especially records were lying everywhere, whole stacks of them wherever you could put them down. However, the house was not exactly gloomy, at least not when Halldór was at home, because his own warm radiance erased all such. He received his guests slowly, but kindly, and led them into the main rooms at the south end of the house. On a shelf there was his gramophone and a recorder for copying the records onto cassettes. To the left was the dining room, and there stood the large dining table with piles of letters, papers and books, and at the end of it was the typewriter, on which Halldór wrote all his articles and reflections. To the right was the "corner" by the window with the couches and the small table, where guests were invited to sit; this was the only place that wasn't full of Halldór's stuff. Over the corner loomed the palm tree, which had been standing there for decades before anyone found it, probably unwatered the whole time.

When a guest came to the garden, Halldór turned off the gramophone. Offered a seat and listened to the guest. Didn't say much, but did throw in the occasional word or comment except when he was really asked, which was often, because not only did people go to him in warring currents for information about music, but he was also the soul bearer of so many who had in difficulty. Many people asked for a recording with a certain composition or song, now or by the performers, and then Halldór stood up and groped the stacks a bit. It was like a miracle that he always knew exactly where everything was in these piles, and in no time the person had the album in his hands and then put it on the phone. Early the next morning, a cassette with a copy of the album was inserted through the visitor's mailbox. Case settled, no slowdown there!

But more about the house itself. It seemed huge. Apart from the living rooms and kitchen at the south end, his father's very large office was at the north end of the building, and into it was his doctor's office and then a waiting room with a separate entrance. From the hole, a very long curved staircase led up to the ceiling where there were 4-5 bedrooms. Up there were innumerable cupboards and shelves that sagged under Halldór's records, also piles of music magazines on tables and chairs, but in the innermost room to the south was Halldór's own bedroom. There was a large selection of music instruments at the foot of his old bed, it was especially in the bedroom that Halldór's loneliness became clearest to me, he was still the boy there who had dreams that didn't come true. You could also clearly see it in the storage room in the attic, where two play tent models, which Halldór had built in his youth, were in bad shape and in disrepair.

But surely Halldór was not always in the house. He was constantly traveling to the world where he had many friends, not least among musicians. He was on good terms with many people, but in particular we can mention the French lyric singer Gerard Souzay, the Dutch Elly Ameling and their co-star, the American pianist Dalton Baldwin, but all of them came to Iceland and gave concerts and courses through Halldór. They were "all natural artists", ie. in Halldór's opinion, their character was not separated from their art, they spoke from the heart, which was what Halldór emphasized the most, whether the person was world famous like them - or just graduated from a small music school in Iceland. In his last years, Haldór often went to the United States to visit old friends; Jimmy Shoemade, who was a voice coach (coach) in New York and Francis Holden, who was his friend and assistant to the singer Halldór had looked up to the most, Lotte Lehmann, who was one of the brightest singers in the world between the wars and who, among other things, visited both Vienna and New York at his feet, both in poetry and in operas. She lived with Francis in Santa Barbara, California during her lifetime, and there Halldór often visited his friend Francis, who connected him directly to Lotte, his star.

Among other singers, whom Halldór held in high regard, we can mention Maria Jeritza, whom Halldór saw when he was young in Vienna, and then Jarmila Novotna, whom Halldór also met in Vienna. They were both beautiful and sang like angels. As fate would have it, Haldór was once sitting on a bench in a square in New York and was eating a sandwich, when an elegant older woman sat down next to him. Hallldór then realized that Jarmila Novotna herself had arrived. He became her friend after that and had an autographed photo of her, which he always carried close to him.

The record collection

Halldór did not collect records. At least not like people collect rocks, grasses or stuffed birds. There was no rule in how Halldór bought records. He just went to a record store, anywhere in the world, and bought the records he wanted. Not the ones missing from the collection. No, the ones he wanted to hear; work or performer, it doesn't matter, just something he found exciting and wanted to hear, preferably over and over again, preferably to be able to share it with others. That's why his album collection is so unique and at the same time so personal. It is not a "museum". It is a testimony of passion, of a man who could not live without music and certainly not without singing.

Halldór had little or no control over his album collection, which when it was completed after his death amounted to over ten thousand albums. The records were always available, whether it was in the stacks on the floor, the chairs, the tables or in the cupboards. He always knew where they were, just like a good mother knows everything about her children. And he shared them with him to anyone who wanted.

He traveled widely and everywhere he bought records. That's why there were 50 suitcases in his basement when he died. He went out with one and came home with two, the new one was under the plates. In fact, this also applied to all the alarm clocks that were found with him. He bought a new one in each city, but left it at home when he left for the next trip. Fifty alarm clocks – without collecting them! Or the currency. Before credit cards, you had to get notes to save yourself on foreign soil. When they got home, people put the money in a drawer to take with them on their next trip. But not Halldór. He put his currency in a plastic bag and put the bag in a cupboard or drawer and then forgot where it was for the next trip. After his death, the aunts found currency in almost every cupboard and drawer they opened - in a plastic bag! A glass of money.

Halldór bequeathed his album collection, house and other possessions to the Iceland Academy of the Arts, which was also full of money. For them, his fund was established, which aims to preserve his record collection, reward young and promising musicians, and support LHÍ's Music Library.

Halldor

Halldór was a unique man in so many ways that no words can fully describe him. When he died in the intensive care unit of Landakot Hospital, where his father was once the head doctor, some of his friends and I were at his bedside. At the end of the day, I started fiddling with the stuff on his table and found a CD that Halldór had recently been given with a Japanese countertenor (Yoshikatzu Mera). I put the disc in the device and then the wonderful tones of Richard Strauss's poems sounded. Just when Halldór gave up, the song from Morgen was sung: "Und Morgen wird die Sonne wieder Scheinen". At that moment, the sun's rays shot out from the clouds and lit up the living room. It was a beautiful moment, unearthly and unforgettable. Like Halldór himself!

• Song party in honor of Halldór Hansen
• Halldór Hansen honored
• Halldór is one of the few who does not judge
• Friendly threats fit for a ruler
• A fountain of knowledge and wisdom with unvarying taste
• Memorial concert dedicated to Halldór Hansen
• Memorial concert dedicated to Halldór Hansen

• Obituaries July 31, 2003
• Obituaries August 1, 2003
• Obituaries August 2, 2003
• Obituaries August 5, 2003
• Obituaries August 13, 2003