Rued Langgaard - Music of the Spheres (Thomas Dausgaard)

Information

Composer: Rued Langgaard

• (01) Sfærernes Musik (The Music of the Spheres), BVN 128
• (16) Endens Tid (The Time of the End), BVN 243
• (20) Fra Dybet (From the Abyss), BVN 414

Inger Dam Jensen, soprano

Hetna Regitze Bruun, mezzo-soprano

Peter Lodahl, tenor

Johan Reuter, baritone

Danish National Choir

Danish National Vocal Ensemble

Danish National Symphony Orchestra

Thomas Dausgaard, conductor

Date: 2010

Label: Dacapo

https://www.dacapo-records.dk/en/recordings/langgaard-music-of-the-spheres

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Review

Marvellously recorded accounts of some of Langgaard’s finest scores

Rued Langgaard may have been one of music’s great nutcases, his output bewilderingly variable, but he was capable of writing great music. The Music of the Spheres (1916-18) is a case in point, an extraordinary tapestry for a large albeit sparingly used orchestra (with distant small ensemble accompanying a solo soprano) and choir. The work eschews traditional musical development and form for the most part in its 15 continuously played sections, proceeding more as a series of interlinked studies in sonority, shimmering textures and long drawn-out chords blending with apocalyptic visions, in a heady cocktail of Symbolist allusion and athematicism. Dausgaard’s interpretation, brought vividly to this year’s Proms to much acclaim, accentuates the textural subtleties of the score in a vibrant recording that achieves amazing quietude (when the timpani are not on the rampage). Frandsen – on a treasured Danacord twofer with Symphonies Nos 4, 6, 10 and 14 – and Rozhdestvensky found more overt drama in the music, but Dausgaard, running five minutes longer than either, has the edge in orchestral refinement, caught to perfection by Dacapo.

The Time of the End is, essentially, the suite from Langgaard’s opera Antikrist, preserving – the Prelude aside – music from the 1921-23 original (discarded from the final version of 1930), though it only reached its final form in 1943. Dausgaard’s interpretation is of a muchness with Rozhdestvensky’s, coupled with From the Song of Solomon and Interdict. From the Abyss (1950-52) was Langgaard’s final completed piece, inspired by lines from the Requiem Mass. It is tempting to see it as a final valedictory memorial but is best heard as a fine if diffuse choral-and-orchestral tone-poem. It rounds out this superbly played and recorded disc splendidly. Highly recommended.

-- Guy Rickards, Gramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 10 / SOUND QUALITY: 10

MusicWeb International  RECORDING OF THE MONTH

https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/langgaard-music-spheres/

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/aug/05/langgaard-music-of-the-spheres-review

https://www.amazon.com/Musi-Cof-Spheres-Time-End/dp/B003T68VOE

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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).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rued_Langgaard

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Thomas Dausgaard (born 4 July 1963 in Copenhagen) is a Danish conductor. Dausgaard has been Principal Conductor of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra since 1997, and chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra since 2016. He was also Principal Conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra from 2004 to 2011, and will become music director of the Seattle Symphony in 2019-2020 season. Dausgaard has recorded several recordings of Danish and other Scandinavian music for Chandos and Dacapo labels, including works by Per Nørgård, Rued Langgaard and Franz Berwald.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Dausgaard

http://thomasdausgaard.com/

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