Austria & Iceland: A 19th-Century Romance That Lives On

The silence in the main Eldborg hall in Harpa this April was not the empty kind, but the stillness of a thousand people holding their breath as Víkingur Ólafsson sat down at the Steinway grand piano to play Beethoven’s late sonatas. As a frequent attendee of his performances, I admire his very elegant play free of attitude - showing a deep sophistication that simply lets the music speak. He reminds me of the “Golden Age” pianists, such as Rubinstein or Claudio Arrau, who always placed the composer’s voice above their own ego.

By keeping the entire concert program in the keys of E major and E minor, Víkingur created a single, continuous atmosphere and his masterly achievement of performing the entire program without any break or applause between the pieces made it possible to lose oneself completely in the music.

As Beethoven’s genius was shaped very much during his time in Vienna, where he lived for over 35 years as part of the "Viennese Classics" alongside Haydn and Schubert, that evening for me (an Austrian living in Reykjavík) felt like a bridge between my two worlds-one of those rare moments when the music speaks straight to the soul, touching the quiet corners of homesickness we sometimes carry abroad, while also reminding us at the same time that music is a truly universal language.

But most importantly, the concert brought to mind a recent discovery at Bókin: a delicate volume found just days earlier titled Die Briefe Beethovens (The Letters of Beethoven). This sophisticated, hand-bound edition - one of only fifty ever made, is a curated window into Beethoven’s soul, detailing his professional battles and his heartbreaking descent into deafness. Reading these letters, one senses not just the myth of Beethoven, but the human himself.

Inside, in a strange twist of fortune, we found a beautiful ex libris identifying the former owner of the book as Dr.Hans Freiherr von Jaden, an Austrian nobleman and a "friend of Iceland" long before it became fashionable.

He traveled to Reykjavik in 1897 and became the author of the 1902 work, Islands Frauen und ihr Anteil an der heimischen Kultur und Literatur (Icelandic Women and Their Share in Domestic Culture and Literature). Within the book, we found a handwritten dedication by von Jaden himself to: "Baronin Asta von Jaden — in aufrichtiger Verehrung" (Baroness Asta von Jaden — in sincere devotion).

Curious, I began to research and uncovered a story like a fairy tale. During von Jadens visit to Iceland in 1897, he met Ásta Pétursdóttir, whose father was a central figure in the city's administration, serving as the City Treasurer of Reykjavík. 

The couple fell in love and married 1899 in a ceremony that united the Austrian nobility with the Icelandic administrative elite. When members of the Austrian aristocracy questioned the match, suggesting the Baron had "married down," Ásta and von Jaden successfully demonstrated that she was of distinguished descent, and she was later loved and celebrated in Vienna as a "princess of the fairy tales“. 

A 1958 farewell article in Morgunblaðið describes how Ásta lived in Vienna for over fifty years, creating a sanctuary for Icelanders visiting them, serving them hot chocolate and Viennese cakes. And even as she felt a deep homesickness for Iceland, she chose to always remain in Vienna - the city where her "beloved husband" lived and died.

As I turned the pages of this rare volume, I found another hidden treasure that stopped my heart: a single, pressed Edelweiss flower tucked away between the pages. Seeing that small, white star - the ultimate symbol of my Austrian home -preserved inside a book that had traveled over unknown paths all the way back from Austria to Iceland really touched me. It felt like a forwarded greeting placed there a hundred years ago, finding me now and reaching from Austria to the shores of Reykjavík.

Standing here today with the book in my hands, it feels like a modern reflection of that 19th-century story. While Ásta moved from Iceland to Austria, I’ve made the journey in the opposite direction. Like her, I feel connected to both places - shaped by where I come from and equally at home where I am now, appreciating the richness of both cultures.It feels like a century-old circle coming full turn.

But whether it’s a rare Austrian book found in an old bookshop in Reykjavik or a beautifully performed Beethoven sonata in an Icelandic concert hall, art and love are the threads that quietly connect our worlds. And the romance between Austria and Iceland? It isn’t just a dusty chapter of history -but still very much alive today ;-)