Déjà Review: this review was first published in September 2002 and the recording is still available.
Rued Langgaard (1893-1952)
Symphony No 9 From Queen Dagmar’s City, BVN 282 (1942)
Symphony No 10 Yon Hall of Thunder, BVN 298 (1944-45)
Symphony No 11 Ixion, BVN 303 (1944-45)
Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Dausgaard
rec. 1999 (Nos 9 and 11), 2001 (No 10), Radiohuset Concert Hall, Copenhagen, Denmark
Dacapo 8.224182 [54]
These symphonies just do not sound as if they were written in the 1940s; at least not going by the received stylistic orthodoxy. Then again, Langgaard was never one for contemporary fashion. He found his own bipartite style and used it thoroughly. The first of the two style components is a euphoric reflection of Schumann’s orchestral music – a nostalgic embrace with high romance also beloved of Lange-Muller and J P E Hartmann. The second part is equally out of kilter with the argot of the times. It can be heard in such works as the Insectarium, the Sinfonia Interna, the opera-cantata Antikrist and the choral orchestral Music of the Spheres – all works from the period 1915-1923. In this way Langgaard looks back nobly, unconcerned by criticism of pastiche anachronism on one hand and of alien avant-garde-ism on the other.
Nazi-occupied Denmark saw the writing of these three symphonies. The Ninth is an example of his high-tilt romanticism, tapping directly into the style of Robert Schumann’s Spring and Rhenish symphonies. The only jolt comes with the Ribe Cathedral movement, where bells follow the melodic line established by the slow wash and surge of the strings. A similar shock attends the piano role among doom and storm-clouds towards the end of No 10. Did Langgaard recall Schumann’s Cathedral movement from the Rhenish symphony? The movements are: Queen Dagmar sails to Ribe; The Dance at Riberhus; Ribe Cathedral; The turbulent life of the past.
The Tenth Symphony was my second experience of Langgaard which I recall playing back on an old Philips reel-to-reel tape recorder. This is a single movement work full of pugnacious and unbridled fantasy. Listen to the vol-planing of the heaven-scouring strings, which begins within minutes of that exciting surging opening. This is much closer to the zest and rush of Elgar’s In the South and Second Symphony. There are even insurgent elements from Tchaikovsky (much more apparent in Louis Glass’s Fifth Symphony than here), Mendelssohn, Liszt and even Miaskovsky (17:10). However it is the super-charged Schumannic stream that predominates alongside far from inconsequential Straussian hallmarks such as the rollingly rapturous horns, Mephisto allusions and Asgard-like episodes (18:12, 22:40). The notes, by world Langgaard authority (and his cataloguer), Bendt Viinholt Nielsen, remind us that the work was premiered by Launy Grøndahl in 1947 (who stood the same service for the Ninth in 1943). The present recording uses a new, critically revised edition of the score.
The Eleventh is a symphony of a similar brevity to Havergal Brian’s No 22 ‘Sinfonia Brevis‘. Whereas the Brian is full of variety and ‘travel’, Langgaard’s is iterative. The volcanic-romantic, gestural, cycling, raucous minimalism of the piece expresses itself in the language of Bruckner and Wagner. Four tubas placed at the front of the orchestra enter towards the end of the piece. This is the same Langgaard who wrote a piece in which Carl Nielsen’s name is called out repeatedly. There is something Satie-esque about this.
By the way, Ixion is the hapless mortal who, having offending the Gods, found himself bound to a flaming wheel rotating for eternity. Yon Hall of Thunder is the name given to a rocky peninsula at Kullen in Denmark, where Langgaard spent twenty-six happy summers.
Rob Barnett
Dacapo’s Langgaard Symphony Cycle:
Thomas Dausgaard/Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra
Symphony No 1 6.220525 (Jens E Laurson-Jan 2009)
Symphonies Nos 2-3 6.220516
Symphonies Nos 4-5 8.224215 (Rob Barnett-Sep 2002)
Symphonies Nos 6-8 8.224180 (Terry Barfoot-Oct 2001)
Symphonies Nos 9-11 8.224182 (Rob Barnett-Sep 2002)
Symphonies Nos 12-14 6.220517 (Rob Barnett-Jan 2007)
Symphonies Nos 15-16 6.220519 (Rob Barnett-Apr 2009)
Complete Symphonies 6.200001 (Rob Barnett-Apr 2009) ~ 6.200001 (Dan Morgan-Dec 2012)
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