A belated thank you for your support, Antonio.

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Rued Langgaard - The End of Time (Gennady Rozhdestvensky)


Information

Composer: Rued Langgaard
  1. The End of Time, BVN 243: 1. Antichrist. Prelude
  2. The End of Time, BVN 243: 2. At the End of Time
  3. The End of Time, BVN 243: 3. Towards the End of the World
  4. The End of Time, BVN 243: 4. The Catastrophe
  5. From the Song of Solomon, BVN 381
  6. Interdict, BVN 335: 1. Furiously fast - faster
  7. Interdict, BVN 335: 2. Agitatedly fast - slow
  8. Carl Nielsen, Our Great Composer!, BVN 335

Nina Pavlovski, soprano (1-5)
Stig Andersen, tenor (1-5)
Per Hoyer, baritone (1-4)
Per Salo, organ (6, 7)

Danish National Symphony Orchestra & Choir
Gennady Rozhdestvensky, conductor

Date: 2000
Label: Chandos

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Review

'Polemic' is the thread connecting four works which grant us the clearest glimpse inside the troubled mind of one of this century's most extraordinary composers

The End of Time, a concert suite dating from 1939-40, is based on the original 1921-23 version of the opera Antikrist (see January's issue for the 1926-30 version's recent recording). It's a cantata in four movements (a prelude and three self-contained 'arias') to which Langgaard made further revisions as he assembled it, the whole making a highly effective work that doesn't betray its origins. The text as retained also illustrates, in brief, the radical differences between the two versions of the opera. The shorter From the Song of Solomon (1949) is one of his last works, and typically strays very little from the Straussian opulence of the opening. There is more than a touch of Wagner in the latter stages, and in his fine notes Bendt Viinholt Nielsen points up the influence of Gade. Langgaard's selective use of the Biblical text had a moralistic point aimed at what he felt was the degenerate Danish society of the time.

The orchestral Interdikt (1947-48) is targeted more personally; specifically, at the interdict he believed the Danish musical establishment had placed on him. It is quintessential Langgaard - eruptive, memorable and not a note too long. The role of the organist is an acute autobiographical touch (Langgaard was the organist of Ribe Cathedral at the time). Carl Nielsen, Our Great Composer (1948; the title is also the complete text) presents the less attractive, paranoid side of his creative persona. This sarcastic little hymn is pure doggerel (catchy, though), attacking Nielsen's posthumous pre-eminence and lying mid-way between Bartok's anti-Leningrad Symphony swipe in the Concerto for Orchestra and Hans Werner Henze's disturbed and disturbing Essay on Pigs.

Rozhdestvensky has the measure of Langgaard's idiom, and secures top-notch performances, while Chandos's sound is rich and clear. Langgaard may have composed greater works - Music of the Spheres (9/97), for example - but I for one have learned more about the way the man thought from this single issue than from any other.

-- Guy Rickards, Gramophone

More reviews:
BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: **** / SOUND: *****
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2000/apr00/langgaard1.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Langgaard-End-Time-R/dp/B00003XB24

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rued Langgaard (28 July 1893 – 10 July 1952) was a late-Romantic Danish composer and organist. Langgaard composed in a late Romantic style which was at odds with that of his Danish contemporaries and was recognized only 16 years after his death. Influenced by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, he was a master of orchestration and a prolific composer for the large orchestra, writing 16 symphonies as well as other orchestral works. His total production of over 400 works included more than 150 songs, works for piano, organ, and an opera entitled Antikrist (The Antichrist).

***

Gennady Rozhdestvensky (born 4 May 1931 in Moscow) is a Russian conductor. He studied conducting with his father, noted conductor and pedagogue Nikolai Anosov, at the Moscow Conservatory and piano with Lev Oborin. Rozhdestvensky is considered a versatile conductor and a highly cultured musician with a supple stick technique. With the USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra he recorded all the symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich, Alexander Glazunov, Anton Bruckner, Alfred Schnittke, and Arthur Honegger for the label Melodiya. He also premiered many works of other Soviet composers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennady_Rozhdestvensky

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

FLAC, tracks
Links in comment
Enjoy!

5 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are my HERO !!!
    Thank you very much

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dear Ronald Do,

    Please could you replace the links of this album.

    Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  5. Choose one link, copy and paste it to your browser's address bar, wait a few seconds (you may need to click 'Continue' first), then click 'Free Access with Ads' / 'Get link'. Complete the steps / captchas if require.
    If you are asked to download or install anything, IGNORE, only download from file hosting site (mega.nz).
    If MEGA shows 'Bandwidth Limit Exceeded' message, try to create a free account.

    https://direct-link.net/610926/langgaard-end-of-time
    or
    https://uii.io/6a7U23rufx
    or
    https://exe.io/FQSe

    ReplyDelete