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Presence of the Past, Present is the Lastsingularities on the preserved Icelandic musical forms throughout centuriesListening to the Icelandic language is a form of time-travelling. It has not much changed over time, staying very close to the forms used during the Middle Ages. Great efforts have been made to keep this language ‘pure’ of foreign borrowings for a very long time. Even family names stay true to a long-dated patronymic system. 12th century texts can be understood by any modern speaker, resulting of serious efforts to preserve the language from being influenced by foreign lexicon. The music of this language did not evolve, nor did the music for many centuries.In the Middle Ages, people did not dance to music, they sung to music. Dancing was banned for a long time, houses were small and people worried to constantly bump into each other. Problem of ethics but also not to damage the material possessions indoors. The scattered population in Iceland, great distance between different communities were factors altering the local creative process and entertainment. The dominant isolation pattern in Iceland, its insular position and long winters made it difficult to make long journeys to meet other people or fare to other countries [Gudmundsdottir, 33].Sources to track back the music practised in Iceland during the pre-Christian and early Christian times remain scarce. Most references are contained in the old Icelandic literature, with indirect references to the musical culture of this period. Poetry was transmitted orally, and remain the oldest and most comprehensive source of old Norse mythology and culture. Poets are willingly presented performing poetry and having good voices, e.g. Þorsteinn drómundur in Grettissaga, Þormóður Kolbrúnarskáld in Fostbrædrasaga, but no references to instrumental playing lay in Icelandic sagas.Plenty of references are to be found in old Icelandic sources about charms practised for centuries following the conversion to Christianity. There are two attested forms in Old Icelandic for ‘charm’: galdr referring to a magic song or charm and when used in the plural to witchcraft and sorcery; and the word seiðr for spell, charm, enchantment, incantation deriving from the verb seiða , to work a spell, practise sorcery.Literary sources showed that the first generation of Icelanders were familiar with instrument playing, but references to the concrete performing by the Icelanders themselves are lacking.The specificity of Icelandic music is the singing in fifth interval. In the Late Middle Ages a French priest called Riccini came from Paris to teach singing and verse-making in Iceland. No teacher came after his death for a long time. The form he taught survived in Iceland while it evolved in the continent. Liturgical singing was limited to the singing of plainsong, from Latin texts but composed according to Icelandic rhyme-rules. For musical education, icelanders may have gone abroad. The Icelandic traditional song style is called tvisöngur ‘twin-singing’. Common minor and major intervals become more and more used in Europe whereas this only reached Iceland in the 19th century.Fifth are commonly used in music to evoke the sound of medieval times or exotic places. Once a commonplace, modern uses tend to rely on this to parody styles the composer is supposed to evoke. Still in the medieval period. church organs and positive organs were arranged for keys to speak in consecutive fifths. Hence the strong religious character of traditional Icelandic tunes. The very popular Protestant Hymns by Hallgrimur Petursson were arranged in modern versions with harmoniums and pipe organs. Traditional Icelandic songs also called rímur. Deeply rooted in the old skaldic poetry the first settlers brought with them in the ninth century, rímur were to become the main source of entertainment in Iceland . Epic alliterative and rhyming ballad, usually sung acapella, this secular art did not give way to another form of  poetry until at least the fourteenth century,The dominant influence of the Protestant Church in Iceland came to an end with the Reformation in the half of the 16th century. From this time to the beginning of the 19th century, Icelandic music remained almost unaffected by the flourishing influence of music culture of the continent. Denmark the last colonial country for centuries [note de bas de page ou explicite] especially influenced the national romanticism period in Iceland. With an increased musical activity at the end of the 19th century, instruments were imported, and both secular and sacred music became a form of expression to new musical standards.Angélique Moulis WeissMaster 2 AnglaisBIBLIOGRAPHYInterview of the Umbra Ensemble, words by Valur Gunnarsson for The Reykjavik Grapevine, published nov. 17. 2016http://www.musik.is/Tvisindi/sjo_sinnum-remixe.htmlhttps://uni.hi.is/adalh/files/2010/04/Arv.pdfRagnarsson