Langgaard's Lyre

[TheGSMoeller]

Hi,

[asin]B00005AG71[/asin]

Just came in the mail today, recommended from some of my new GMG forum friends here  thanks!

Also, I love this portrait, one of the best Composer portraits in a album sleeve i've seen

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Hi,


Just came in the mail today, recommended from some of my new GMG forum friends here    thanks!

Overall, an excellent disc (I love No. 14 in this reading, because the outer - choral - movements have real majesty.). One word of warning, though - No. 10 is far too sluggish, IMO. Stupel 'rules' in that piece.

[cilgwyn]

I remember the first time I ever heard this composer. Back in the late 70's (or early 80's,perhaps?). I sent off via mail order for the Danacord LP of 'The Music of the Sphere's' and the Sixth symphony. It took a few months to arrive,but that's how it was with some imports then. I remember the big parcel arriving with the Lp,featuring an entertainingly wierd & rather garish looking painting on the cover (I must go & look for a photo,after),which only seemed to enhance my youthful enthusiasm.
A few years later I taped a broadcast of Langgaards Fourth off Radio 3 (where else?),followed,a little later,by a live broadcast of the same symphony.
I've had the complete cycle now,for a while,bought seperately,I hasten to add. Whether  Rued's symphonies are consistent,or are any of them are actually major symphonic statements is perhaps open to debate,but the sheer variety of his output is quite astonishing. I particularly like the way that,even though Langgaard spent so much of his time as an embittered,miserable sod,very little of this is actually evident in his music. It's as if he used music as some kind of cathartic escape from his lonely,unhappy existence.
Incidentally,one of my favourites is the eighth,a lovely,sunny,tuneful work,even if it is more like a suite. But with music as delightful as that,who cares? It should be more popular.
The 'Antikrist' was the last major work I invested in. This is surely the closest Langgaard got to producing something as massive and mind boggling as Havergal Brian's 'Gothic Symphony'. I keep wondering whether it IS a masterpiece. It's so wonderfully deranged,and it all seems to make sense in a wacky kind of way. Again,the range of expression and styles is astonishing & despite the portentous title it's far from gloomy! Ultimately,I suppose the libretto is too nutty to ever satisfy Langgaard's keenest critics.
I note that 'Herrenberg' rates Stupel very highly. I have heard some suggestions that his interpretations are,in some way,superior?

NB: Record labels seem to have a field day finding bizarre paintings for Langgaard cd covers. Not so sure about the Dacapo sleeves though. Maybe they'll come into focus if I can find my reading glasses!

[Lethevich]

Your impressions are wonderful to read, and you hit upon something interesting. I would be wary about declaring even one of Langgaard's symphonies as a masterpiece, and yet as a cycle the continual invention and variety demands its consideration as a major achivement, and consequently requires the attention of anyone interested in the medium during Langgaard's lifetime. Brian I would say has several works worthy of advocating as masterworks in their style, although I would add a qualifier even to those - they remain "special interest" only, to some extent.

IMO a great benefit of the Stupel cycle, and a characteristic which prevents his recordings from being outdated by the newer Dausggard (which is in clearer sound, newer editions and played by an orchestra that people have heard of) is that the performances sound astonishing for such unknown forces, and where Dausgaard is analytical, Stupel is stormily Romantic and rather richly recorded. In a sense, the two cycles most beautifully compliment each other.

[vandermolen]

Hi,

[asin]B00005AG71[/asin]

Just came in the mail today, recommended from some of my new GMG forum friends here  thanks!

Also, I love this portrait, one of the best Composer portraits in a album sleeve i've seen

This is my favourite Langgaard CD along with Jarvi's CD of symphonies 4 - 6 on Chandos.

[cilgwyn]

Thank you for your reply 'Lethe'. I tend to go along with your differentiation between masterwork and masterpiece. While Nielsen,easily has a couple of masterpieces (sorry Rued) it's hard to see one in Langgaard's output that is quite on their exalted level,wonderful as they are. There is a universal quality to Nielsen's inspiration which I do not find in Langgaards output. It's hard to explain (especially before lunch!),but Langgaard's inspiration seems (at least to me) more parochial. Wild,colourful,intense,romantic,lyrical,tuneful,passionate,dreamy,stormy,eccentric,disturbed,heroic,serene,are some of the words that spring to mind when listening to  Rued Langgaard's symphonies,but not humane,spritual and profound,which DO apply to those of his hated rival. That's not to denigrate Langgaard,although I'm pretty sure HE'D be offended,but it's not that hard really to see why Langgaard has been relegated to 'second division' on the 'world stage'. Having said that,he is a superb orchestrator and the sheer scale,breadth and cussed individuality of his ouput does have you scratching your head every now and again and thinking,'Maybe Rued was right,maybe he WAS a great composer?'
And then you put on Carl Nielsen!

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Nice discussion, Cilgwyn and Sara! You both raise some interesting points.


I too have always marveled at the positive energy, the exuberance, and the sensuousness of Langgaard's music, which is so at variance with his life.


Years ago I read his biography, written by Langgaard expert Bengt Viinholt-Nielsen (yes, in Danish...): what struck me there, did strike some other commentators, too - that Langgaard's musical outlook was formed but also warped by his parents. Both were Theosophists (his father composed, too) and had a very Schopenhauerian idea of the composer - in communion with a higher force, bringing a spiritual realm sonically to life. His parents adored Schumann, Gaade, Liszt and Wagner. But almost anything newer was anathema to them, and this seemed to have influenced Langgaard profoundly in his distaste for modern life and modern music, of which Nielsen was the strongest Danish exponent. At the same time, his mystical view of music did inspire him - in Music of the Spheres - to some of the most advanced music of the 1910s! I think, too, that - masterwork/masterpiece - Langgaard's work should be taken as a vibrant but uneven whole, where every style is used in - as Viinholt Nielsen says - an almost postmodern fashion. That's why his symphonies are such a strange cycle, with two centuries living side by side.

[Lethevich]

The reason I didn't reply to your post, Johan, is because the concepts there are a little too bewildering for me at this time A living composer who is unwilling to understand new music is a delicious concept in a sense.

Some quick comments about the first symphony, which Sarge asked about in another thread: the Segerstam recording is rather impressive. It's by far the longest of the recordings (7 minutes more than Dausgaard, 12 longer than Stupel - cuts there, surely?). I am surprised to find myself enjoying the commitment of the recording - previously Dausgaard had been my "go to" for this work, as the combination of his clarity and tempi made the work more navigable to me. Segerstam has the benefit of also including a filler (as if it needed one) in Fra Dybet - a good piece in itself. I should programme this before or after his 15th symphony sometime.

Dausgaard's production job really is worlds apart. Compared to Segerstam the recording aesthetics are quite different. Segerstam is what we recognise as quite a typical CD sound - quite hefty sounding, rich and with blended climaxes. The Dausgaard has something of an x-ray effect which is unusual to hear to this extent - it is more natural sounding in so far as the brass do not become a textural part of the climax - the section can be focused upon individually which is rather cool, as you get to hear more of the material that the composer wrote. It is strange that I prefer this clarity in the early "Romantic" works, yet I prefer the "Romantic" Stupel in the later ones

Something rather interesting his how personal Langgaard's style really is - the careening, squealing strings offering a "buffeting" effect in the first symphony are also present in advanced works such as his tenth relatively unchanged in technique (although expressively different).

[TheGSMoeller]

Found this video on YouTube of Langgaard himself conducting...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7fjeWJpKvs


Sorry, dont know how to embed the video straight to the post yet.

[Mirror Image]

Found this video on YouTube of Langgaard himself conducting...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7fjeWJpKvs


Sorry, dont know how to embed the video straight to the post yet.

Like this:

http://www.youtube.com/v/s7fjeWJpKvs

By the way, thanks for posting this video. Very interesting to see the man himself conducting.

[TheGSMoeller]

Like this:

http://www.youtube.com/v/s7fjeWJpKvs

By the way, thanks for posting this video. Very interesting to see the man himself conducting.

How did you post the video, MI?

[DavidW]

I'm not MI but I'll tell you the trick is replace /watch?v= with /v/ so

Code Select Expand

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7fjeWJpKvs becomes

Code Select Expand

http://www.youtube.com/v/s7fjeWJpKvs so that when you insert that with the old flash button you get

Code Select Expand

[flash=200,200]http://www.youtube.com/v/s7fjeWJpKvs[/flash] which results in http://www.youtube.com/v/s7fjeWJpKvs.  Hope this helps.

[TheGSMoeller]

I'm not MI but I'll tell you the trick is replace /watch?v= with /v/ so

Code Select Expand

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7fjeWJpKvs becomes

Code Select Expand

http://www.youtube.com/v/s7fjeWJpKvs so that when you insert that with the old flash button you get

Code Select Expand

[flash=200,200]http://www.youtube.com/v/s7fjeWJpKvs[/flash] which results in http://www.youtube.com/v/s7fjeWJpKvs.  Hope this helps.

Thanks, David!

[Mirror Image]

How did you post the video, MI?

Ah, yes, I knew this was coming. It took me awhile to figure but my buddy Johan taught me in a very straight-forward way:

Basically you have the YouTube address which is this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7fjeWJpKvs

What you do is remove the = and replace it with a / and completely remove the watch?

Now it should look something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/v/s7fjeWJpKvs

Now put a {flash=425,350}{/flash} (using the correct [] brackets of course) in the address and now you will have this:

http://www.youtube.com/v/s7fjeWJpKvs

[Mirror Image]

I see Dave has already beaten me to the punch, damn...

[TheGSMoeller]

http://www.youtube.com/v/LXf3BifYrpQ&feature=related


Test completed!! Thanks again, friends.

[Mirror Image]

http://www.youtube.com/v/LXf3BifYrpQ&feature=related


Test completed!! Thanks again, friends.

Alright! You got it! Just remember the number 425,350 because this is just the right size for the forum I think. He's an interesting video I found:

http://www.youtube.com/v/0OX_4cJyhgI

[Sergeant Rock]

Some quick comments about the first symphony, which Sarge asked about in another thread....

Just saw this. Thanks for the reply 

Sarge

[cilgwyn]

The Great Man Himself!

[karlhenning]

The Great Man Crank Himself!

Fixed.

(A loveable crank, mind you, even admirable . . . .)