Langgaard: Symphony no 15 Storm at sea

Day 251

Langgaard: Symphony no 15 Storm at sea

Danish National Symphony Orchestra

Danish National Choir

Thomas Dausgaard

Langgaard (1893-1952) was a Danish composer of the post Nielsen generation - indeed as a youngster he had counterpoint lessons from Nielsen. He seems to have been a remote figure at odd with the Danish musical community and his music was largely forgotten until a revival on CD at the end of the last century.

This symphony dates from 1949 though it incorporates music written in 1937. It was not performed until 1976.  It is in four continuous movements. Like the Hanson earlier in the week it took me by surprise in including a choir and, this time, also a solo baritone in the last movement.  For a work written in the late 1940s it is curiously old fashioned - indeed much of the last movement - a choral description of the storm - would hardly be out of place in The Flying Dutchman.  Taken on its own terms however this is attractive music with passages of great power. Curiously the brief second movement seems to belong to a different world. It evokes the feeling of a Viennese waltz! I've no idea what its significance was in a piece about the sea. Langgaard wrote 16 symphonies altogether and a host of other music, including an opera Antikrist. It seems that that was an earlier work written in a more modernist style - it was only late that Langgaard started writing in a late-romantic style, partly it seems as a protest of the dominance of Nielsen in Danish musical life.