Neglected symphonies: Rued Langgaard

The last time i wrote about Danish composer Rued Langgaard, it was to celebrate a new recording of his Symphony No. 1, not only one of his own best works but a symphonic masterpiece in its own right (surely the best first symphony by any young composer; he was a teenager). That work continues to be a neglected symphony, but the same is true of the 15 more that he composed throughout his life, and indeed almost the entirety of Langgaard’s oeuvre. Part of the reason for this no doubt derives from Langgaard’s unique personality and aesthetic, responding to being ignored in his native Denmark – in favour of, to his perpetual chagrin, Carl Nielsen – by curiously plunging backwards in time, indulging in a form of neo-romanticism often radically reshaped in eccentric ways.

One of the earliest record labels to commit to Langgaard’s music was Denmark’s own Danacord (itself an entity that, like Langgaard, was the product of frustration with classical music and founded “as a protest against the current industry“). Their complete cycle of Langgaard’s symphonies (featuring the Artur Rubenstein Philharmonic conducted by Ilya Stupel) was released in the early 1990s, and they’ve recently added to that with a new double album featuring some of the earliest extant recordings of his symphonic and orchestral output, made between 1957 and 1981.

The album provides a nice overview of Langgaard’s career, extending from one his earliest compositions, the orchestral piece Drapa (originally begun in 1907, a year before he started work on the First Symphony) to one of his latest, Symphony No. 16, completed in 1951, the year before he died.

Drapa is, in fact, represented by a surprisingly clear dating from 1957 (the oldest recording on the album, heard here in what sounds either like early stereo or very nicely treated mono), performed by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Launy Grøndahl. It’s not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination – Langgaard was only 13 when he completed the first version of the work, subsequently revising it twice – but it does give some indication of the lofty heights he would attain just a few years later in the First Symphony. A work posthumously dedicated to Grieg (who expressed early appreciation of Langgaard’s talents; the title is an Old Norse term for a panegyric poem), this performance has more of a tone of sadness than i’ve ever heard before; a stately, solemn reading of the work that builds to a nicely conflicted sense of trudging majesty.

The performance of the large-scale cycle Music of the Spheres (1918) doesn’t outclass the outstanding recording by DNSO under Thomas Dausgaard, but few recordings ever will. A studio performance from 1971, also by DNSO, conducted by John Frandsen, it actually goes a long way to presenting an unvarnished view of the strangeness of Langgaard’s musical language. The problem with that is that it can at times feel impenetrable, more of an exercise in exploring an attractive range of unusual colours and textures than anything else. Yet the piece was quite radical for its time in use of orchestral writing, and to showcase this is no bad thing. In any case, certain sequences are genuinely excellent, particularly part 7, titled ‘Weltseele – Abgrund – Allerseelen’ [World soul – Abyss – All Souls’ Day] where Langgard indulges in what today we would call texture music, made up of flowing individual lines everywhere, with timpani and percussion an increasingly ominous presence. Likewise part 11, ‘Blick durch Tränen auf die Sonne’ [Looking at the sun through tears], developing from a strange cycling chord sequence in the strings, from ethereality to complexity, cancelling out into a darker hue, before continuing to pass through further cycling passages, ultimately sounding deeply unsettling. Langgaard may have ultimately headed stylistically backwards, but at his best he was like a 20th century Berlioz, foreseeing new possibilities in both individual and group instrumental writing, shown off well here.

The Suite of music from the play ‘En Digters Drøm’ [A Poet’s Dream] (1926) is an unrewarding experience, limited to sweeping romantic tropes of the kind heard in films of that era. Laden with rather too much cheese and sugar, if it’s effective at all (which seems doubtful) it surely needs to be heard in the context of the play. The Violin Concerto (1944) fares much the same. In this 1968 recording by Kai Laursen with the Odense Symphony Orchestra conducted by Aksel Wellejus, one’s left wondering what happened to that pioneering spirit heard in Music of the Spheres. The concerto isn’t bad music exactly, but its simple, even simplistic, neo-romantic language just seems rather pointless.

Interdict dates from 1948, and is a short, two-movement work exploring a legend surrounding the possible murder of Danish king Christopher I, who apparently died after drinking communion wine. Langgaard leans hard into dramatic gestures and grandstanding, as if he were writing a film score (for which Interdict would surely work perfectly). Surprisingly, it’s at its best when most grandiose, when it feels most easy to take seriously. Featuring a prominent part for organ – performed here by Grethe Krogh, with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra under Alf Sjøen, in a studio recording from 1970 – the balance feels a touch organ-heavy, though it does at least put this soloistic part in the spotlight.

Hvidberg-Drapa also dates from 1948, and though it’s captured in a 1958 mono recording – by DNSO conducted by Ernst Hye-Knudsen – is extremely clear. Evidently an unfinished sketch (lasting under four minutes), it stands as a testament to how bizarre Langgaard’s language really was. Also connected to the story of Christopher I’s mysterious death, it spends its first half returning to a world of rich, complex orchestral textures; high romanticism that is then abruptly cancelled out in an abrupt switch to organ-led hymn-like music (making another connection to Interdict). All very weird, and while Langgaard would surely have taken this further, as an opening statement it’s engagingly strange, festooned with Scriabinesque performance instructions: “Madly fast – Faster and Faster – Furiously fast – Presto frenetico …”.

So what of the symphonies, arguably the most undeservedly neglected aspect of Langgaard’s music? Three of them are included, essentially from the early, mid and late stages of his career. Symphony No. 4 “Løvfald” [leaf fall], is the most recent recording, made in 1981 by DNSO conducted by John Frandsen. They make a strong case for the symphony’s sense of long-term scope, particularly through the opening movement’s pull from imposing grandness to slower reflection, in turn becoming energised to a point of what sounds like pure desperation. The eighth movement, ‘Træt’ [tired], is gorgeous, suspended strings behind a gentle solo oboe, languid yet also hypnotically focused. The orchestra’s subsequent bristling, rushing activity, crowned by fanfarish brass reports, is fantastically vivid, as is the tricky balance of lyricality and muscularity that follows.

Symphony No. 6 “Det Himmelrivende” [the heaven-rending], completed in 1920 and revised a decade later, is again performed here by DNSO conducted by Martellius Lundquist, in a 1961 recording. It’s also in mono, and while at times this works against the clarity of Langgaard’s involved textures, nothing could obscure the curious mix of simplicity and complexity that continually flexes throughout the work. Anyone familiar with Langgaard’s magnificently weird, stylistically radical opera Antikrist (one of the most unforgettable operas you’re likely never to hear) will recognise large chunks of the symphony, as they were subsequently reused and rewritten to form some of the instrumental sections of the opera (most obviously its Prelude). Structured as a theme and variations, the Fugue (variation 2) is outstandingly performed, with supreme clarity of lines despite the hugely convoluted counterpoint – which a solo trumpet seems to navigate with ease – as is the Sonata (variation 4), built upon an enormous pedal point, taking the symphony light years away from the gentle, folk-like point where it begins, nowhere more so than the epic slow brass and organ line that cuts through the central climax.

Symphony No. 16 “Syndflod af Sol” [deluge of sun] was Langgaard’s last, and excitingly, the recording included here is of it’s world première on 16 March 1966 (note: 14 years after his death), by DNSO conducted by Francesco Cristofoli. There’s the distinct sense of the players getting their heads and their instruments around the piece, practically in real time. Perhaps for reassurance they lean into its Straussian qualities, yet there’s no mistaking the sound of an orchestra struggling to articulate all of Langgaard’s demands cleanly. It certainly captures the electricity of most first performances, and the second movement’s switch to borderline neo-classicism seems to come as a relief – though it again causes us as listeners to question again why Langgaard redirected his radical spirit in these pastiche-guided directions. That being said, the middle movement, ‘Straffedans’ [punishment dance] lives up to its name, breaking things up with volatility, extended in Cristofoli’s treatment of the ensuing ‘Elegi’, which is treated (and sounds) like a Mahler slow movement. The final takes us all the way back to Drapa, again grand and stately, and while the live recording sometimes struggles to keep everything defined, it’s clearly infused with levels of clangorous tempest that the teenage Langgaard would no doubt have seriously approved of.

Rued Langgaard is hardly unique in being a fascinating symphonic composer who throughout his life experienced a curiously dogged kind of neglect in his native land; one immediately thinks of Allan Petersson in Sweden, Andrzej Panufnik in Poland, Matthijs Vermeulen in the Netherlands, among others. This collection of early recordings does at least testify to the fact that the Danish musical establishment eventually started paying him more serious attention. They waited for him to die, of course, so he couldn’t actually enjoy or benefit from the attention, but ultimately the ingenuity, eccentricity and unflagging zeal of his music won through, and resonates loud and clear on this fascinating album. Langgaard’s neglect is ridiculous; he absolutely needs to be heard.

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