Langgaard: Music Of The Spheres/Four Tone Pictures

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) was the odd duck of Danish music. He remained doggedly Romantic at a time when Romanticism was out, and he had his own funny little experiments with music that noboby particularly liked. We owe a debt to Chandos and Danacord for keeping Langgaard's music current. Music of the Spheres (1916-18) predates Gyorgy Ligeti by 50 years with its bright, pointillistic assertions and groups of ideas that evolve to their own inner logic. As demonstrated in Tonebilleder (Four Tone Pictures), Langgaard's music has an openness that allows his tone clusters to expand, contract, or simply repeat (as Ligeti would do much later). Discover Langgaard. --Paul Cook

Langgaard: Music Of The Spheres/Four Tone Pictures, Music, Annette Simonsen, Hedwig Rummel, Rued Langgaard, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Gitta-Maria Sjoberg, Choral, Choral Music, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Miscellaneous, Miscellaneous Music

Average customer rating:

A work of awesome proportions and intimate emotion

One of the most extraordinary works ever written

Music to Amaze Your Ears

Langgaard: Music Of The Spheres/Four Tone Pictures

Manufacturer: Chandos
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
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ASIN: B000000B0N
Release Date: 1997-04-22

Tracks:

Sfaerernes Musik (Music Of The Spheres): Like Sunbeams On A Coffin Decorated With Sweet Smelling Flowers -
Sfaerernes Musik (Music Of The Spheres): Like The Twinklying Of Stars In The Blue Sky At Sunset -
Sfaerernes Musik (Music Of The Spheres): Like Light And The Depths
Sfaerernes Musik (Music Of The Spheres): Like The Refraction Of Sunbeams In The Waves
Sfaerernes Musik (Music Of The Spheres): Like The Twinkling Of A Pearl Of Dew In The Sun On A Beautiful Summer's Morning
Sfaerernes Musik (Music Of The Spheres): Longing - Despair - Ecstasy
Sfaerernes Musik (Music Of The Spheres): Soul Of The World - Abyss - All Soul's Day
Sfaerernes Musik (Music Of The Spheres): I Wish...!
Sfaerernes Musik (Music Of The Spheres): Chaos - Ruin - Far And Near -
Sfaerernes Musik (Music Of The Spheres): Flowers Wither
Sfaerernes Musik (Music Of The Spheres): Glimpse Of The Sun Through Tears -
Sfaerernes Musik (Music Of The Spheres): Bells Pealing: Look Here He Comes!
Sfaerernes Musik (Music Of The Spheres): The Gospel Of Flowers - From The Far Distance -
Sfaerernes Musik (Music Of The Spheres): The New Day -
Sfaerernes Musik (Music Of The Spheres): The End: Antichrist - Christ
Tonebilleder (Four Tone Pictures): I. Like Words For A Summer's Day Saga
Tonebilleder (Four Tone Pictures): II. A Scent Of Mull And Mud
Tonebilleder (Four Tone Pictures): III. A Golden Flake Hovers Above
Tonebilleder (Four Tone Pictures): IV. The Flowering Summer Was Linked To The Harvest

Amazon.com

Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) was the odd duck of Danish music. He remained doggedly Romantic at a time when Romanticism was out, and he had his own funny little experiments with music that noboby particularly liked. We owe a debt to Chandos and Danacord for keeping Langgaard's music current. Music of the Spheres (1916-18) predates Gyorgy Ligeti by 50 years with its bright, pointillistic assertions and groups of ideas that evolve to their own inner logic. As demonstrated in Tonebilleder (Four Tone Pictures), Langgaard's music has an openness that allows his tone clusters to expand, contract, or simply repeat (as Ligeti would do much later). Discover Langgaard. --Paul Cook

Customer Reviews:

A work of awesome proportions and intimate emotion.......2006-12-11

This Chandos disc containing two pieces by Danish composer Rued Langgaard is one of the most pleasant surprises this fan of modern-classical music has come across. Langgaard (1893-1952) was an outsider and eccentric in Danish music life, a virtuoso organist who succeeded only in his late forties at getting a position, and a composer of wild tales of the Antichrist coming into the world who found it almost impossible to get his music played. In the late 1960s, his music was rediscovered by scholars and his importance in Danish musical history is now certain, but he is still little-known in the modern-classical scene. We should be grateful to the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra & Choir and Gennady Rozhdestvensky for their performance and to Chandos for releasing the recording.

"Music of the Spheres" for soprano, chorus, orchestra, and distant orchestra (1916-1918) is stunning. The innovations here are considerable: exploiting the performance space in the use of two orchestras, writing for an "open" piano where glissandi are produced directly on the strings, and of course the clusters and polyphonic webs, massive and seemingly motionless blocks of sound reminiscent of Gyorgy Ligeti. Indeed, the Hungarian composer exclaimed that he was a Langaard imitator when Per Norgard showed him a copy of the score in 1968. But the purity of the string writing reminds me of Alexander Knaifel, and the massive proportions of the orchestral writing at its loudest is somewhat like Sandstroem's "The High Mass".

But, as is often said, it wouldn't matter how much Langgaard were ahead of his time in "Music of the Spheres" if the music wasn't great. And it is, one of the most moving half-hours of orchestral music I'm acquainted with. Langgaard was a Romantic in a time when Romanticism was out of fashion, and the proportions of what the listener may recognize as struggle, momentary defeat, and victory are just as powerful as in Mahler.

"Music of the Spheres" is an exceptional piece in Langgaard's total output. The "Four Tone Pictures" for soprano and orchestra are somewhat more typical of his art. Written on poems by J. Blicher-Clausen, Ivan Turgeniev, and Holger Drachmann, they are fairly tame lieder. These suggest that the modern-classical fan can pass on most of Langgaard's music, but "Music of the Spheres" is so good that at least this disc should be in your collection.

One of the most extraordinary works ever written.......2003-11-21

Music of the Spheres, by the eccentric Danish composer Rued Langgaard, really is the work that has everything. Written between 1916 and 1918, it uses a multitude of techniques that would not be rediscovered until after the wars. Multifarious tone clusters, floating micropolyphony, a piano played directly on the strings, an entire offstage orchestra, blurred choral singing, prefigurations of minimalism: you name it, this work has it. Yet it also has Scriabinesque ecstasy, Straussian opulence and a wacked-out religious subtext in which Christ and Antichrist clash in the violent climax to the whole work.

None of this would matter, though, if the music weren't any good. But it is good--probably the best thing Langgaard ever wrote (so far I've heard about 30 of his works, and none of them matches this one). The various short episodes flow one into another with perfect clarity and logic, the orchestration is superlative, and the dramatic writing at the climax is sonically overwhelming. Fortunately, Chandos match this work with a tremendous performance by the Danish National Radio Symphony and Choir, conducted by that indefatigable servant of underperformed music, Gennady Rozhdestvensky. This recording should be considered the best currently available, and it outstrips the rivals with ease.

Any other work isn't likely to fare so well in comparison to this, but the Four Tone Pictures are by no means eclipsed. Opulent songs in a Straussian harmonic language--though lacking the German composer's gift for melody--they are the perfect way to come down from the musical high of Music of the Spheres.

Music to Amaze Your Ears.......2003-07-23

Rued Langgaard was the man that time forgot. Completely neglected in his native Denmark because he did not fall within the prevailing neo-classic aesthetic set by Nielsen, Langgaard was rediscovered in the 60s when Per Norgard gave a score of Music of the Spheres to Gyorg Ligeti at a competition and after a minute Ligeti announced, "it seems as though I am a Langgaard imitator." Though Langgaard was essentially a conservative late romantic composer, he was capable of some real moments of innovation. He not only presaged Ligeti's color style, but also elements of minimalism, most especially in his string quartets.

Music of the Spheres is Langgaard at his most original. This work is a stunning series of small tone pictures. From the very beginning of the work, with the shimmering cluster of string harmonies over ominous timpani, through out the work, experiment reigns. Langgaard is always tonal, but in this work shows a fascination with orchestral sound and tonal clusters that was probably about 50 years ahead of the times. And yet, in the middle of the work there are sections that could come directly from Schonberg's early Gurrelieder or even the symphonies of Gade. It is a truly astonishing aural sound feast and should be a staple of the repertoire.

The accompanying Tone Pictures, four tone poems on nature themes, are also quite beautiful, though much more conventional as music. Here is Langgaard the Romantic and he is quite a good Romantic actually. The orchestrations are lush, the harmony sensuous and there is just enough oddness to mark the work as Langgaard's and no one else's.

This Chandos disc is exemplary in sound and the performance by Rozhdestvensky is definitive I think. Even if you are afraid of unusual or experimental work, this is a disc that you can take to your heart. It is stunning and beautiful and has my highest recommendation.

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