Langgaard's Lyre

Started by karlhenning, April 25, 2007, 11:43:15 AM

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J.Z. Herrenberg

Many thanks for the link. Will be listening later today!
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Symphonic Addict

Quote from: MusicTurner on October 31, 2020, 10:39:37 PM
Nice to find a Korean, broadcasted performance of Langgaard's complete 1st Symphony, with a huge orchestra, passionate playing, an enthusiastic conductor knowing the score by heart, and a raving applause at the end ....  :)

Well done, Rued.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MatX5qo9V74

Oh, thank you!!! It will be fascinating to see the huge orchestra playing this epic piece.
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Maestro267

Oh, it's back up! That's fantastic! It was on Youtube a while ago, and that performance is what introduced me to said symphony and got me to buy a recording of it.

Symphonic Addict

#643
I wonder if the Vienna Philharmonic will continue the series of symphonies. The next natural step should be the 4th Symphony, which I consider one of his most cohesive creations. To be honest, their recording of the 6th lacks power is a staggering composition and things move with a more moderate pace. We need more symphonies with this combination of forces!!
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

vandermolen

Quote from: Symphonic Addict on January 26, 2021, 04:04:22 PM
I wonder if the Vienna Philharmonic will continue the series of symphonies. The next natural step should be the 4th Symphony, which I consider one of his most cohesive creations. But to be honest, his recording of the 6th lacks power, and things don't move well. Järvi on Chandos understood better the score. He achieved to hold a taut reading with precise playing, whose result is a thrilling symphonic journey.

I hope so. No.4 is my favourite - a great work.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Symphonic Addict



This work had been intriguing me for quite some time. Today was the day to find out. Eminently meditative, pensive, with an important religious gravitas. The quirky Langgaard is absent here. I can't say I enjoyed it as much as I wanted. I'm not too keen on solemn or quiet organ music, and this work has lots of that. The length also helped against it.
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

J.Z. Herrenberg

I really love this piece, and if it were an hour longer, I wouldn't say No... I like the quirky Langgaard just as much, by the way. Perhaps being religious myself is a help.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Symphonic Addict

#647
The 6th is simply a thing of a wonder. Man, is there any more exultant, angry and epic piece of music in the history?

I mean, the process from soft stillness to a real like-a-supernova explosion embraces a big musical journey, here Langgaard is more organic that he had thought. It's almost like a concerto for orchestra, you hear each instrument with clarity. It only could compare with greats: Respighi's St Gregory the Great, the Alpine Symphony, or any like you a similar mood and style by other composers of important musical height. An orgasmic and quite cathartic sonic experience!

I can't get enough of the Oramo recording with the Wiener!! I don't know why the heck I was excluding this ravishing performance and recording. It's a beast. This could literally push the roof up to kilometers, even light years.

But my favorite is definitively Järvi with the Danish Radio S.O. (or with Royal, not sure). Järvi and the the great orchestra contribute with a more quirky reading, a littke bit more intense because it also benefits fast tempi. The struggle, the way Langgaard weaves the conflict is nothing short of astonishing. It should be compared or paired with an experience such as, I don't know, the Super Bowl (I would say I don't want to be exaggerating here  ;D ). I would pay to see and hear this live!!!

Langgaard is one of those composers in whom I can trust blindly. I can go with safe pace enjoying much of his stuff and even consider him like a genius in many respects. He managed to mix up moody and visionary temperaments, a loyal Romantic spirit, he never lost his roots and teachers' traditions. An indispensable composer? For me yes, he is! I can't live without his Symphony Nos. 1-6, 9-13 and 16. I feel good if rescue those.
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Mirror Image

#648
I can only nod my head along with your own, Cesar. Langgaard is an extraordinary composer and it's a damn shame he died in obscurity.

Symphonic Addict

Quote from: Mirror Image on November 15, 2021, 06:25:16 PM
I can only nod my head along with your own, Cesar. Langgaard is an extraordinary composer and it's a damn shame he died in obscurity.

These have been better times for increasing the interest in his deserved popularity.
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Mirror Image

Quote from: Symphonic Addict on November 15, 2021, 08:30:24 PM
These have been better times for increasing the interest in his deserved popularity.

Yes, but if he was actually acknowledged as the great composer I have no doubt that he is, perhaps he would have a better chance of being heard in the concert hall. His 1st symphony made quite the splash upon it's premiere with the Berliner Philharmoniker, but when his fellow Danes didn't pay him much attention. I often wonder what might've happened had left Denmark to pursue a more international career? Something to certainly ponder for sure.

Symphonic Addict

Quote from: Mirror Image on November 15, 2021, 08:39:18 PM
Yes, but if he was actually acknowledged as the great composer I have no doubt that he is, perhaps he would have a better chance of being heard in the concert hall. His 1st symphony made quite the splash upon it's premiere with the Berliner Philharmoniker, but when his fellow Danes didn't pay him much attention. I often wonder what might've happened had left Denmark to pursue a more international career? Something to certainly ponder for sure.

It seems this saying would apply to him pretty good: no prophet is accepted in his hometown, or IOW, nobody is prophet in their own land. I want to think he would have gone beyond in terms of harmony and he would have opt for avoiding "Romantic" excesses.
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Symphonic Addict

This sort of interview is quite interesting and enlightening:

A drama at the organ in Frue Kirke

Rued Langgaard speaks about Høstens Tid (Harvest Time), and about the vulgarisation that followed.
Berlingske Aftenavis, 21 April 1936


- I feel like a caged animal!

The composer, Rued Langgaard, who has been talking standing by the window sill looking out into Fredericiagade, his eyes like those of a vulture behind his lorgnettes, narrow as razor blades in the light from the window, walks up and down the floor as if impelled by the restless movements of his hands.

- I could put it like this: there is so much discord here in this country that anyone of a spiritual nature can't even die in peace!

He pauses between sentences, but his hands continue to talk their own clear language, as he clenches them behind his back or drums them on the window sill. It seems to be a conversation between a man and his hands rather than an interview; questions do not seem to reach him.

- They have built a wall up around me. But why? I have not even been able to get even a minor post as an organist, even though I have been applying for twenty years, twenty years. And I have not only applied, I have talked - talked and talked endlessly. And to absolutely no avail. Day after day, year after year, constant effort and conflict, so that a lot of the time I lie exhausted in bed. I don't believe that even someone on the dole could really understand what it is like, this struggle. At least he can feel bitterness or rage, but I am a composer, I have to continue to do my duty. Gade had an easier time of it, much easier.

- Do you feel akin to Gade?

- Oh yes! With the real Gade, that is, what I understand by Gade, and that is his later works. They are not played any more, either. They were full of the spirit. But now politics rules music, and the leading circles in the music world are guided by social considerations rather than musical. They hate the direction of Gade's work, the mood of it, the spirit. It is no use using the fact that Beethoven's Symphonies are played as an excuse, they are not the most perfect expression of spiritual beauty anyway. They do not satisfy that longing for deep feeling that is in us, in the people. In fact the people possess precisely what the leading musical circles lack - feeling. They give the people stones for Bread.

- Have you never had luck on your side?

- Yes, indeed. In 1913, in Berlin, when my 1st Symphony was performed. I have written eight, but the first one was given a rapturous reception. But then the World War came. Yes, the World War....

A prelude to "Everyman"

Tomorrow, Rued Langgaard is playing his new composition, "Messis", "Høstens Tid" ("Messis", "The Harvest Time") on the organ at the Cathedral.

- Why have you invited the public free of charge?

- Because people are afraid of organ music, and quite understandably, because they have destroyed and degraded our organs with the dead, screeching stops that belong to the time before Bach. Imagine that such rubbish should have a renaissance! The last time I gave a concert, 24 years ago, it was hard to get people to come. I had to pay for it myself, get financial guarantees in order to be able to present my works. The Cathedral will also have to be paid.
My composition has been written over two years; I call it a drama for organ, and it depicts the Crucifixion and four movements illustrating the words of Jesus himself about "The Harvest Time".

- Are you deeply religious?

- As a composer I am not especially religious. And even though the words of the Bible have inspired me to write this drama for organ, there are also other motives. For example, the time leading up to the World War, from Gade's death up to the World War, which I call The Harvest Time. At this point music reached such a height of splendour and glory, such a richness of beauty, that it can be compared to the time of the harvest in the biblical sense. Now, after this, we see the dissolution, the vulgarisation.

- Your symphonies are seldom performed.

- That is true. At the most they have been played twice, mostly at my own expense. The State Broadcasting Service has played two: "Det Himmelrivende" ("The Heaven-Rending") and "Ved Tordenskjolds Grav i Holmens Kirke" ("At Tordenskjold's Grave in Holmens Kirke"). On the other hand, they rejected one of my large compositions, variations on the major work my father left behind. It was interrupted by his death. My most recent work is a prelude to "Det gamle Spil om Enhver" ("Everyman"). Just as I had finished it, they decided not to perform it anyway. That's it, all the time and everywhere doors are slammed in my face as soon as I approach the threshold.

[Signed] nls. [Carsten Nielsen]



Taken from his webpage:

http://www.langgaard.dk/litt/interv/etdramae.htm
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

vandermolen

Quote from: Symphonic Addict on November 15, 2021, 09:33:41 PM
This sort of interview is quite interesting and enlightening:

A drama at the organ in Frue Kirke

Rued Langgaard speaks about Høstens Tid (Harvest Time), and about the vulgarisation that followed.
Berlingske Aftenavis, 21 April 1936


- I feel like a caged animal!

The composer, Rued Langgaard, who has been talking standing by the window sill looking out into Fredericiagade, his eyes like those of a vulture behind his lorgnettes, narrow as razor blades in the light from the window, walks up and down the floor as if impelled by the restless movements of his hands.

- I could put it like this: there is so much discord here in this country that anyone of a spiritual nature can't even die in peace!

He pauses between sentences, but his hands continue to talk their own clear language, as he clenches them behind his back or drums them on the window sill. It seems to be a conversation between a man and his hands rather than an interview; questions do not seem to reach him.

- They have built a wall up around me. But why? I have not even been able to get even a minor post as an organist, even though I have been applying for twenty years, twenty years. And I have not only applied, I have talked - talked and talked endlessly. And to absolutely no avail. Day after day, year after year, constant effort and conflict, so that a lot of the time I lie exhausted in bed. I don't believe that even someone on the dole could really understand what it is like, this struggle. At least he can feel bitterness or rage, but I am a composer, I have to continue to do my duty. Gade had an easier time of it, much easier.

- Do you feel akin to Gade?

- Oh yes! With the real Gade, that is, what I understand by Gade, and that is his later works. They are not played any more, either. They were full of the spirit. But now politics rules music, and the leading circles in the music world are guided by social considerations rather than musical. They hate the direction of Gade's work, the mood of it, the spirit. It is no use using the fact that Beethoven's Symphonies are played as an excuse, they are not the most perfect expression of spiritual beauty anyway. They do not satisfy that longing for deep feeling that is in us, in the people. In fact the people possess precisely what the leading musical circles lack - feeling. They give the people stones for Bread.

- Have you never had luck on your side?

- Yes, indeed. In 1913, in Berlin, when my 1st Symphony was performed. I have written eight, but the first one was given a rapturous reception. But then the World War came. Yes, the World War....

A prelude to "Everyman"

Tomorrow, Rued Langgaard is playing his new composition, "Messis", "Høstens Tid" ("Messis", "The Harvest Time") on the organ at the Cathedral.

- Why have you invited the public free of charge?

- Because people are afraid of organ music, and quite understandably, because they have destroyed and degraded our organs with the dead, screeching stops that belong to the time before Bach. Imagine that such rubbish should have a renaissance! The last time I gave a concert, 24 years ago, it was hard to get people to come. I had to pay for it myself, get financial guarantees in order to be able to present my works. The Cathedral will also have to be paid.
My composition has been written over two years; I call it a drama for organ, and it depicts the Crucifixion and four movements illustrating the words of Jesus himself about "The Harvest Time".

- Are you deeply religious?

- As a composer I am not especially religious. And even though the words of the Bible have inspired me to write this drama for organ, there are also other motives. For example, the time leading up to the World War, from Gade's death up to the World War, which I call The Harvest Time. At this point music reached such a height of splendour and glory, such a richness of beauty, that it can be compared to the time of the harvest in the biblical sense. Now, after this, we see the dissolution, the vulgarisation.

- Your symphonies are seldom performed.

- That is true. At the most they have been played twice, mostly at my own expense. The State Broadcasting Service has played two: "Det Himmelrivende" ("The Heaven-Rending") and "Ved Tordenskjolds Grav i Holmens Kirke" ("At Tordenskjold's Grave in Holmens Kirke"). On the other hand, they rejected one of my large compositions, variations on the major work my father left behind. It was interrupted by his death. My most recent work is a prelude to "Det gamle Spil om Enhver" ("Everyman"). Just as I had finished it, they decided not to perform it anyway. That's it, all the time and everywhere doors are slammed in my face as soon as I approach the threshold.

[Signed] nls. [Carsten Nielsen]



Taken from his webpage:

http://www.langgaard.dk/litt/interv/etdramae.htm
Most interesting Cesar and thanks for posting it. He comes across rather as I imagine him. I'd liked to have heard him asked about his views on Nielsen!
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Mirror Image

Quote from: Symphonic Addict on November 15, 2021, 09:16:46 PM
It seems this saying would apply to him pretty good: no prophet is accepted in his hometown, or IOW, nobody is prophet in their own land. I want to think he would have gone beyond in terms of harmony and he would have opt for avoiding "Romantic" excesses.

It's difficult to imagine what kind of composer Langgaard would have developed into if he had achieved international success, but, honestly, what I find puzzling is even though Nielsen is the "greatest" Danish composer, it seems that even his star has faded nowadays.

MusicTurner

#655
I don't think Nielsen's star faded, but there's been a ton of recordings within the last say 3 decades, perhaps satisfying a lot of the market's demands. Based on my (vague) feelings, we are probably not seeing a lot of say V-W, Hindemith, Stravinsky, Lutoslawski, Messiaen or R.Strauss orchestral recordings either these days. And there's a new Nielsen Violin Concerto recording coming soon from DG, for example.

Regarding Langgaard's hostility towards Nielsen, it has been pointed out that there are actually also similarities in their production; the 6th symphony is often put forward in that respect. The hostility was, among other things, psychological, or idiosyncratic. Though with Nielsen, you don't see the same level of old-school, religiously influenced thinking, and musical nostalgia.

Mirror Image

Quote from: MusicTurner on November 16, 2021, 07:10:55 AM
I don't think Nielsen's star faded, but there's been a ton of recordings within the last say 3 decades, perhaps satisfying a lot of the market's demands. Based on my (vague) feelings, we are probably not seeing a lot of say V-W, Hindemith, Stravinsky, Lutoslawski, Messiaen or R.Strauss orchestral recordings either these days. And there's a new Nielsen Violin Concerto recording coming soon from DG, for example.

Regarding Langgaard's hostility towards Nielsen, it has been pointed out that there are actually also similarities in their production; the 6th symphony is often put forward in that respect. The hostility was, among other things, psychological, or idiosyncratic. Though with Nielsen, you don't see the same level of old-school, religiously influenced thinking, and musical nostalgia.

Well, you're talking in past terms, I'm talking about the present. It doesn't seem like Nielsen is getting much attention. There's a new recording of Nielsen's VC coming out on DG? A link please! Curious about the performers especially.

Karl Henning

Quote from: Symphonic Addict on November 15, 2021, 09:33:41 PM
This sort of interview is quite interesting and enlightening:

A drama at the organ in Frue Kirke

Rued Langgaard speaks about Høstens Tid (Harvest Time), and about the vulgarisation that followed.
Berlingske Aftenavis, 21 April 1936


- I feel like a caged animal!

The composer, Rued Langgaard, who has been talking standing by the window sill looking out into Fredericiagade, his eyes like those of a vulture behind his lorgnettes, narrow as razor blades in the light from the window, walks up and down the floor as if impelled by the restless movements of his hands.

- I could put it like this: there is so much discord here in this country that anyone of a spiritual nature can't even die in peace!

He pauses between sentences, but his hands continue to talk their own clear language, as he clenches them behind his back or drums them on the window sill. It seems to be a conversation between a man and his hands rather than an interview; questions do not seem to reach him.

- They have built a wall up around me. But why? I have not even been able to get even a minor post as an organist, even though I have been applying for twenty years, twenty years. And I have not only applied, I have talked - talked and talked endlessly. And to absolutely no avail. Day after day, year after year, constant effort and conflict, so that a lot of the time I lie exhausted in bed. I don't believe that even someone on the dole could really understand what it is like, this struggle. At least he can feel bitterness or rage, but I am a composer, I have to continue to do my duty. Gade had an easier time of it, much easier.

- Do you feel akin to Gade?

- Oh yes! With the real Gade, that is, what I understand by Gade, and that is his later works. They are not played any more, either. They were full of the spirit. But now politics rules music, and the leading circles in the music world are guided by social considerations rather than musical. They hate the direction of Gade's work, the mood of it, the spirit. It is no use using the fact that Beethoven's Symphonies are played as an excuse, they are not the most perfect expression of spiritual beauty anyway. They do not satisfy that longing for deep feeling that is in us, in the people. In fact the people possess precisely what the leading musical circles lack - feeling. They give the people stones for Bread.

- Have you never had luck on your side?

- Yes, indeed. In 1913, in Berlin, when my 1st Symphony was performed. I have written eight, but the first one was given a rapturous reception. But then the World War came. Yes, the World War....

A prelude to "Everyman"

Tomorrow, Rued Langgaard is playing his new composition, "Messis", "Høstens Tid" ("Messis", "The Harvest Time") on the organ at the Cathedral.

- Why have you invited the public free of charge?

- Because people are afraid of organ music, and quite understandably, because they have destroyed and degraded our organs with the dead, screeching stops that belong to the time before Bach. Imagine that such rubbish should have a renaissance! The last time I gave a concert, 24 years ago, it was hard to get people to come. I had to pay for it myself, get financial guarantees in order to be able to present my works. The Cathedral will also have to be paid.
My composition has been written over two years; I call it a drama for organ, and it depicts the Crucifixion and four movements illustrating the words of Jesus himself about "The Harvest Time".

- Are you deeply religious?

- As a composer I am not especially religious. And even though the words of the Bible have inspired me to write this drama for organ, there are also other motives. For example, the time leading up to the World War, from Gade's death up to the World War, which I call The Harvest Time. At this point music reached such a height of splendour and glory, such a richness of beauty, that it can be compared to the time of the harvest in the biblical sense. Now, after this, we see the dissolution, the vulgarisation.

- Your symphonies are seldom performed.

- That is true. At the most they have been played twice, mostly at my own expense. The State Broadcasting Service has played two: "Det Himmelrivende" ("The Heaven-Rending") and "Ved Tordenskjolds Grav i Holmens Kirke" ("At Tordenskjold's Grave in Holmens Kirke"). On the other hand, they rejected one of my large compositions, variations on the major work my father left behind. It was interrupted by his death. My most recent work is a prelude to "Det gamle Spil om Enhver" ("Everyman"). Just as I had finished it, they decided not to perform it anyway. That's it, all the time and everywhere doors are slammed in my face as soon as I approach the threshold.

[Signed] nls. [Carsten Nielsen]



Taken from his webpage:

http://www.langgaard.dk/litt/interv/etdramae.htm

Most interesting, thanks!
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

MusicTurner

#658
Quote from: Mirror Image on November 16, 2021, 08:14:56 AM
Well, you're talking in past terms, I'm talking about the present. It doesn't seem like Nielsen is getting much attention. There's a new recording of Nielsen's VC coming out on DG? A link please! Curious about the performers especially.

It's difficult to talk about current concert life generally, because of the breaks or stand-stills of corona. The CD market is easier to follow.

The DG release will be with an Asian, female soloist; I read about it somewhere 2-3 days ago, but sadly I don't have a link or recall the name.

MusicTurner

#659
And BTW, DG is also recording a complete Nielsen symphonies set with Fabio Luisi and the Danish National Symphony O.

It has been set for release in April 2022, unless corona delays it.

I seem to remember the Violin Concerto news also pictured Luisi. Maybe-maybe we might even get the three concertos from DG too, then.

Good to see DG interest for a wider range of symphonists recently, cf. the Ives and Franz Schmidt complete symphonies sets, etc.