Langgaard's Lyre

[Symphonic Addict]

Sakari Oramo's Berlin Philharmonic recording of Langgaard's Symphony No. 1 has just been released and is solid but measured (respectable).  Perhaps that is a result of this being Berlin where it needs to be respectful.  Nothing is wrong, it just isn't a high octane or risky interpretation.  I think that's the general problem with Langgaard.  He rides the boundary of experimental and safe.  This work straddles Richard Strauss opulence but Brahms conservatism too.

Interesting, I'll have to give it a listen one of these days. For me, that work has also Wagnerian influences. The symphony has its flaws, but I can't overlook how powerful, overwhelming and inspiriting it can be.

[vandermolen]

Sakari Oramo's Berlin Philharmonic recording of Langgaard's Symphony No. 1 has just been released and is solid but measured (respectable).  Perhaps that is a result of this being Berlin where it needs to be respectful.  Nothing is wrong, it just isn't a high octane or risky interpretation.  I think that's the general problem with Langgaard.  He rides the boundary of experimental and safe.  This work straddles Richard Strauss opulence but Brahms conservatism too.

Most interesting! I hardly know this work even though I have the earlier (Chandos) recording.

[relm1]

Most interesting! I hardly know this work even though I have the earlier (Chandos) recording.

I liked the Chandos, that's Jarvi, right?

[Wanderer]

I liked the Chandos, that's Jarvi, right?

Segerstam.

[Brian]

I will be coming to the Oramo recording from years of knowing the symphony only through Dausgaard (Dacapo). It looks like Oramo's is the fastest of all (five minutes faster than Dausgaard), though of course speed and excitement do not perfectly correlate.

relm1 is a reliable guide in my experience, but I'll still go in excited to hear the newcomer.

[CRCulver]

Perhaps that is a result of this being Berlin where it needs to be respectful.

I think the Oramo series is less about offering compelling new interpretations (though some listeners may find them there), and more about encouraging people to think about Langgaard as a mainstream composer, because look, a very famous orchestra is recording him.

[Symphonic Addict]

When art songs are concerned, I do not feel too enthusiastic about them. However, I decided to try this recent release to do a little change on my usual listening sessions. All of these songs span from 1906 to 1917, rather early years taking into account that Langgaard was born in 1893, and judging by what I heard, these are very fine, alluring pieces in a quite romantic (or late-romantic) fashion, gorgeously performed and recorded. I found the Sange af Jenny Blicher-Clausen (Songs by Jenny Blicher-Clausen), BVN 66 especially subtle, intimate, delicate.

[Brian]

Coming on July 12:

Antikrist (Blu-Ray)
Composer(s):   Rued Langgaard
Artist(s):   Aj Glueckert Andrew Dickinson Chorus of the Deutsche Oper Berlin Clemens Bieber Ersan Mondtag Flurina Stucki Götz
Label:   NAXOS BLU-RAY VIDEO (NBRV)

Looks like the production was mounted this January.

[Le Buisson Ardent]

When art songs are concerned, I do not feel too enthusiastic about them. However, I decided to try this recent release to do a little change on my usual listening sessions. All of these songs span from 1906 to 1917, rather early years taking into account that Langgaard was born in 1893, and judging by what I heard, these are very fine, alluring pieces in a quite romantic (or late-romantic) fashion, gorgeously performed and recorded. I found the Sange af Jenny Blicher-Clausen (Songs by Jenny Blicher-Clausen), BVN 66 especially subtle, intimate, delicate.

I don't believe I've ever heard any of Langgaard's songs. I'm not a huge fan of the genre either, but I may check out this disc at some juncture. Thanks for the heads-up.

[Symphonic Addict]

Over these days I've discovered (and partly rediscovered) his complete works for violin and piano. In spite of a few pieces could have lacked extra points to impress a little more, there's definitely an element of originality, defiance and purpose in most of them, chiefly the Violin Sonatas 2-4; these three pieces contain the best of the composer: quirkiness galore (including some titles of the works themselves and their movements), unpredictability, endearing lyricism that one hears in some of his string quartets (the 3rd Violin Sonata falls into this quality), etc.

On hearing these works, the combination of the dissident and the conservative that inhabit this composer is one of his hallmarks and that makes his style unique and certainly attractive to many (including me) who find merit in his music.

[Symphonic Addict]

I had forgot about this recent release which contains different recordings of the symphonies 4, 6 and 16 (among other works) from others previously issued, so I decided to give the 4th a listen and it's a formidable rendition in very good sound indeed. No wonder why the symphonies 4 and 6 get more exposition than many of his others, they're clearly some of his best and most visionary pieces in my view. This is a studio recording from 1981, John Frandsen conducting the Danish National Radio S.O. (there's a live recording with the same forces on the same label on a twofer featuring some of his symphonies and Music of the Spheres on disc for the first time if I'm not mistaken). Many claim and I understand their point about his music being "all over the place", with little development of ideas and/or scarce skill for creating transitions between sections that otherwise would make it more cohesive. Even so, I can't deny how appealing Langgaard presents his ideas in the Fourth, ideas related to autumn, nature and esoteric topics that aim to represent a symphonic poem in several sections more than a proper symphony. This is really memorable, moody music and some of its striking effects (mostly on the strings) linger in the mind.

When I first stumbled upon this work 16 or 17 years or so ago (it was the inaugural piece that opened my ears to this composer), I knew that I had found something special that had resonated (and still does) with me in a way I'm not fully able to explain well even as of today. It's the magic of music, I suppose, something abstract and ineffable that affects you for good and makes you reflect on.

[Brian]

Over the years I have come to love the Straussian late romantic generosity of Langgaard's first two symphonies, and the achingly beautiful poetry of a single movement, "Unnoticed Morning Stars," from his Fourteenth. But aside from the fact that the Twelfth ends with a notation, "Amok! A composer explodes!" I didn't have strong memories of the other thirteen symphonies. Being in a mood for obsessive listening projects this year, I decided to jump into the whole cycle.

One comment on the Dacapo packaging: I wish the booklet notes had commentary on each individual symphony. Instead, there is a three-page overview of the composer's life and musical style, with a small number of examples, plus sung texts.

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No. 1 is not representative of the composer: he was a teenager, full of youthful enthusiasm, and it's an hourlong romantic extravaganza. Premiered by the Berlin Philharmonic! The high point of his professional career, tragically. After he turned 20, he was doomed by a combination of World War I, poor reviews, and neurotic self-pity.

It may not be representative, with its big sweeping melodies, epic scope, and rich Strauss-like orchestration. But it is consistently fun. It's also not too long. The full hour is entertaining, catchy, and dramatic. Certainly you could compare it to Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony. Maybe the first movement's storminess gets repetitive after a while, but no more so than in Manfred or some Mahler allegros. The third movement has a heroic, almost Hollywoody climax, and the symphony's ending, complete with callbacks to previous movements, is wildly over the top.

This is the kind of piece I can only listen to once every 3 years or so because it is so decadent, but when those 3 years are up, I enjoy my listen.

My favorite for a long, long time has been No. 2, which takes the exuberance and enthusiasm of No. 1 and makes it 35% shorter and 15% less melodramatic, adds a soprano solo, and tacks on a super cool ending flourish that I find unforgettable. It's once again catchy and entertaining, but not exhausting in the way of the First. I wonder if a successful performance of this work, immediately following the success of the First, would have set Langgaard on a different life and career path.

No. 3 is the first but not last Langgaard symphony to have two different names: The Flush of Youth and La Melodia. The other quirk is that it is a piano concerto, also with chorus. The piano comes and goes, and there is a memorably weird slow movement where the timpanist also has near soloistic work intoning a grave march tempo. At the end of this, the piano plays a brief, tender nocturne. But it's interrupted by the finale, which ascends to a climax in which a wordless choir aaahs the big melody as the pianist bangs away underneath. I imagine it to be some kind of vision of heaven, or maybe the fountain of youth, a striving toward transcendence. This is the first really weird Langgaard symphony.

No. 4, "Fall" (using Dacapo's translation; I've seen Leaf Fall as well) is in one 24-minute arc, 13 tracks on the disc, but recognizably something close to sonata form with faster and slower material that is put through a variety of transformations. It's not autumnal in the Brahmsian sense but in a more bracing, northern feeling: high winds, swirling leaves, a memorable moment with the strings repeating an obsessive upward motif. At the end, discordant church bells interrupt a storm of some kind and usher in a dramatic ending that harkens back to the beginning. Abrupt, strange, pictorial, compelling music.

No. 5 exists in two versions that are very different: different numbers of movements, almost all different tempo markings, and the second version has a double nickname, Steppe Landscape / Summer Saga Drama. The short version, 14 minutes, is much like a symphonic poem, with a mysterious beginning leading to a succession of dramatic climaxes. The final section is a swirling, windy piece that could have been in No. 4, accented with solo violin and harp, fading to a quiet ending that echoes/mirrors the beginning. (Much like Kalevi Aho!)

Version 2 starts the same as Version 1 for about 16 seconds, but the first climax is brighter and bigger, more like Nielsen with the blaring tuba. There are a couple of added medium-fast episodes with outdoor Nordic character, including a sort of light folksy peasant dance with drone bass and triangle in the final section, where the storm was before. The storm very briefly comes back and the piece ends with a drum roll.

No. 6 is a theme and variations that begins with two very different statements of the theme, the first mysterious and fugal and strings only, the second more declamatory. Another fugal variation follows, then a toccata. Even though I know Langgaard hated and resented Nielsen, I think of Nielsen frequently. It's the contrapuntal intensity, the density of feeling, the muscular excitement of the music. There's also a sense of danger at many points, but the ending is a real blaze of glory, a visionary ending, one of Langgaard's most memorable moments.

No. 7 is the first symphony during Langgaard's self-imposed exile into a more reactionary style, jealous over Nielsen's success. He still, to my ears, can't avoid the Nielsen influence, but now it sounds more like that composer's First Symphony. The first movement is abrupt and over quickly; the slow movement that follows, the symphony's longest, is even more old-fashioned, and calls to mind the Schumann/Mendelssohn era and romantic funeral marches. The only "modern" element is the very last chord, protracted to parody length and underscored by, I think, a tam-tam. Then there's a charming and again very old-fashioned scherzo and a rather pompous finale that ends with a flourish: pounding drums, crashing cymbals, enthusiastic triangle. It's a weird, silly little pastiche that is nevertheless more memorable than a lot of the symphonies it copies.

No. 8 takes the basic conservatism of the prior symphony and adds back in a more modern style of orchestration, with orchestral piano and, in the third movement, singers. Once again, Langgaard relies on the "pompous" instruction for the players. The whole piece has the feel (though not, of course, the sound) of a piece written for a formal state occasion, as if the poem sung in the third movement was in praise of some king or emperor (it is not). A deeply weird symphony. I wonder why Langgaard, who wrote this at roughly my age, expressed his bitterness with his musical colleagues by writing "pompous" ceremonial pieces in happy keys.

Nos. 9-16 later in the month!

[Symphonic Addict]

I really like that Dacapo set of his symphonies, save for Nos. 4 and 6. The 4th sounds too rushed and lacking in subtlety in certain passages. I like more detail, caring and lyricism (Stupel/Danacord, Järvi/Chandos and Frandsen/Danacord on studio are other fine alternatives in my view). The 6th is conducted relatively slow up to the section before the epic coda and the latter, again, feels so rushed that it ruins the experience for me. That incredible ending needs more breath to overwhelm much better. The performance that does it right is Neeme Järvi/DNRSO on Chandos. That team really understood the real spirit of the score, and if that implies not to follow the composer's instructions to make it more successful and impactful, I'm all for it. Others may enjoy Dausgaard's readings on those pieces, of course.

Other than that, the other version of the 7th which was recorded on Danacord has a few differences with respect to the Dacapo one. The 8th is my least favorite of his symphonies. It's just too inflated and banal (the same could apply on his 11th Ixion, but that work is so fun and catchy that I don't mind how vacuous it may be).

[relm1]

I thought quite highly of this album.  Rozhdestvensky was great at these spectacle works.  I don't think he recorded anything else by Langgaard.

[Symphonic Addict]

Yes, he did: