Though many of their initial composers had to study and apply their trade abroad due to insufficient opportunities on offer at home, they were able to bring what they had learned back to Iceland.[2][3] One of these musicians was Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson, who was the first person from his homeland to pursue "an international career as a composer".[2] He sojourned in Edinburgh during the early 1870s,[3][4] and wrote the music for Lofsöngur inside a town house located in the city's New Town in 1874.[3] By 1922, the song became so well known and loved throughout Iceland that, in recognition of this, the Althing endowed Sveinbjörnsson with a state pension.[3] He was the first composer in the country to be conferred such an honour.[2]