|
Site review by Castor December 14, 2008
|
Performance: Sonics: |
This is the third release in Dacapo’s valuable survey of the Symphonies of Rued Langgaard and would make a good starting point for anyone wishing to explore the music of this hugely talented, but eccentric outsider. How can one resist a composer who marks the ending of this symphony ‘Entusiastico maestoso’?
It is hard to believe that Langgaard was only fourteen when he began to compose this symphony. His impressive command of a huge post-Wagnerian orchestra suggests a composer of considerable maturity, and one can only speculate how his talent would have developed along different lines had his music been more sympathetically received by his Danish contemporaries. This symphony was however enthusiastically welcomed by the less conservative public in Berlin when it received a performance in 1913 conducted by Max Fiedler.
This SACD is the symphony’s third recording (the second by this orchestra) and certainly in performance terms the most successful. The playing of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra/DR is superb throughout, and Thomas Dausgaard propels the music forward with a sense of purpose that manages to avoid any temptation to wallow in the work’s late-romantic excesses. He also tries hard to clarify the textures of Langgaard’s heavy scoring, but unfortunately is not helped by a slightly generalised and over-reverberant recording that sounds somewhat woolly and congested in the predominantly loud sections of this symphony. The upper strings also suffer from a shrillness that is not to be found on the 1993 Chandos RBCD version conducted by Leif Segerstam and recorded in the same venue.
The surround channels are used purely to provide a welcome ambience.
In spite of the slight reservations expressed above, this is the version of this astonishing symphony to buy, and I eagerly await the announced set of all 16 Langgaard symphonies on this label.
|
Copyright © 2008 Graham Williams and SA-CD.net
|
|
|
|
Site review by Geohominid May 24, 2008
|
Performance: Sonics: |
Rued Langgaard, having criticised his fellow Danish composers for their slavish adherence to modernism, was abandoned to plough his own very Late Romantic furrow. Something of a Wunderkind, he never managed to succeed to the same extent as his near contemporary, Erich Korngold, although ironically there are many passages where his music recalls Korngold. Wagner, Gade, Tchaikovsky, Liszt and Richard Strauss are other very obvious influences in his music. Langgaard believed that music had a meaning beyond mere notes, in a religious sense. He sought to add programmes to much of his music in order to aid the listener's grasp of this meaning, taking Richard Strauss' programmatic works to another level. However, since music is a very imprecise art-form for describing places and events, it is perhaps best to note the composer's inspiration and then let the music take you where it will.
The First Symphony, rarely played and recorded, is an astonishing achievement. Langgaard was 15 years old when he started it, 20 when it was finished after a period of revision. Its 5 movements describe a walk from a rocky shore in Sweden up to a mountain peak, a clear reference to Strauss' Alpine Symphony. Curiously, the work bursts upon the listener with a blaze of majestic sound celebrating the surf, while it ends on a note of contented accomplishment, almost the opposite of Strauss' glorious peroration at reaching his summit. Even at this early stage, the sheer confidence and textural awareness of the young composer as a superb orchestrator is astonishing. Dausgaard simply gives Langgaard his head but manages to control the intense, saturated writing and massive volume of the climaxes which almost roll over one another. With a lesser conductor and orchestra, such rhapsodic and intense music could become overbearing or overwhelming. The indefatigable Danish National Symphony Orchestra are almost pushed to their limits, but respond magnificently, revelling in the torrents of sound they emit but still producing lovely solo work (especially woodwind) at the more reflective moments. There are some flaws in the work, as expected from an inexperienced symphonist. For example, the coda of the first movement seems interminable, despite Dausgaard's well-paced containment of its volume and strength.
The recording is very good, although the orchestra is placed somewhat far back in a reverberant hall. In a way this is a good thing as it allows the huge climaxes to expand nicely, but the acoustic is hard rather than warm, so passages with high strings and added piccolo as in the last movement can sound a little glassy. Chandos managed a warmer acoustic for Segerstam's version of the First Symphony on RBCD. However, played at a good volume, the sound can be quite spectacular, with a very natural concert perspective.
If you like the sound of a large orchestra playing melodious Romantic music with great conviction, this is well worth seeking out. It certainly rewards repeated listening. Langgaard's biographer provides excellent notes on the composer's attitude to the symphony in general and the genesis of the First in some detail.
|
Copyright © 2008 John Miller and SA-CD.net
|
|
|
|
Review by jlaurson January 3, 2009 (7 of 7 found this review helpful)
|
Performance: Sonics: |
Danish record company DACAPO is joining the chorus of vocal supporters of Rued Langgaard (1893-1952). It was the second volume of the Dacapo recordings of Langgaard’s Violin Sonatas that turned me on to this marvelous, lovably strange, utterly romantic, occasionally acerbic, short-lived 20th century composer. Since then, I’ve tracked down most Langgaard releases—especially his symphonic œuvre. Alas, not until Dacapo started recording the symphonies with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Dausgaard (on hybrid SACDs, no less), were there truly credible, excellent versions of these works available. I reviewed Symphonies 12 through 14 earlier last year (“There is Something Wonderful in the State of Denmark”) and Symphony No.1 is in some ways even more impressive.
That’s in most part due to the work itself. Although written when Langgaard was still a teenager (1908-1911, premiered by an enlarged Berlin Philharmonic off 100+ musicians on April 10th 1913), it betrays a master craftsman and – most importantly – a master melodist. Langgaard, who went on to found a music society to “counterbalance the horrors of modern music”, never adjusted to (much less adapted) the dissonant and dodecaphonic style of his contemporary composers. Consequently he was shunned by critics after 1918.
Langgaard is not ashamed of the occasional Tchaikovskean melodic phrase (four minutes into the first movement, check for yourself if you resist the urge to figure skate to that music), Wagnerian bombast, and it’s all put to perfect, sumptuous use in this five movement symphony. Although programmatic music (the symphony depicts a hike from the rocky shores of a mountain to its pinnacle, the movements are named “Surf and Glimpses of the Sun”, “Mountain Flowers”, “Legend”, “Mountain Ascent”, and finally: “Courage”), it works perfectly well as absolute music. It’s a bold, audacious, uninhibited, unabashedly pleasant symphony – perhaps like early, very frivolous Mahler – minus the Angst and the chromatic twists. Or might it be described as de-kitsched Rachmaninov? Whatever the case, it’s a glorious sixty minutes played exceedingly well and captured in glorious sound. Urgently recommended to anyone who likes romantic orchestral music, whether Tchaikovsky or Sibelius, Bruckner or Respighi.
--Review by Jens F. Laurson, WETA FM, December 17, 2008
|
Was this review helpful to you?
|
|
|
| |
