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Who was Langgaard?
The composer Rued Langgaard is the "problem child" of Danish
musical life, and nevertheless he stands as a distinctive and interesting figure
in Danish music of the 20th century.
Langgaard has been called "the tragic case" of our country's
music history, because in spite of his fantastic musical gifts, he never found a
natural place in the musical life of his day. One of the reasons for this was
that Langgaard was an unusual person, an introverted, touchy and unpredictable
loner who had absolutely no talent for "selling himself." Another
reason for his exclusion from the musical society was that his uncompromising
artistic position brought him into conflict with the Carl Nielsen-influenced,
anti-romantic aesthetics, which became absolute in Denmark around the time of
Nielsen's death in 1931. Langgaard held fast to an artistic point of view whose
main ingredients were Romanticism and Symbolism. He fought against the tide like
a man obsessed. As a composer and musician (he was a phenomenal organist)
Langgaard was, to a great extent, neglected by the musical establishment and
thus did not receive true recognition during his lifetime. With his peculiar
appearance he became regarded as an original, who struggled with purely personal
problems rather than issues of artistic relevance. In short, people found it
difficult to take Langgaard seriously. And Langgaard felt alone, set-aside,
persecuted, and betrayed by both his own generation and the various musical
institutions.
Forgotten after his death in 1952, Rued Langgaard was discovered in both
Denmark and Sweden in the last half of the 1960s. The wave of Mahler and
Bruckner enthusiasm created a sympathy for the "overlooked" late
romantics; and Langgaard, the "ecstatic outsider" as the Swedish
musicologist Bo Wallner labelled him in 1968, got a second chance. Although a
number of Langgaard compositions were premiered and performed at that time
(especially by the Danish state radio), it has only recently become possible to
get an understanding of the composer's output.
Stylistically, Langgaard's music is suprisingly irregular. His obvious
excentricity in certain works and strong derivativeness in others seems to stand
in the way of a more impartial artistic assessment of the music. During the last
3 to 4 years, however, a foundation has been laid which enables us to judge
Langgaard and his music: A detailed catalogue of works was published in 1991, 7
CDs containing Langgaards 16 symphonies and a number of other orchestral works
were released in 1992 (more than 100 of his compositions can now be found on
either CD or LP) and on the centennial of Langgaard's birth 1993, the composer
received a great deal of attention which included the appearance of the first
Langgaard biography. A number of the composer's important works have recently
been published for the first time.
A Biographical Outline
Rued Langgaard was an only child. Both of his parents were pianists:
his father, Siegfried Langgaard (1852-1914), devoted himself to pedagogical
activities (he taught at the Copenhagen conservatory for 33 years), while his
mother, Emma Langgaard (1861-1926), gave private piano lessons. Siegfried
Langgaard was also a composer of piano music and songs and somewhat of a
thinker, greatly concerned with a philosophy of music which had a
theosophically-coloured religious conviction as its basis.
Langgaard's parents quickly ascertained that their son's musical gifts
were quite unusual; in fact they literally regarded him to be a genius.
Everything was organized so that his intellectual development could happen
naturally and with complete freedom. Private tutors attended to his education
while lessons in music theory and aesthetics were primarily taken care of by the
father himself. Thus Rued Langgaard did not experience a normal childhood.
Instead he received an isolated and goal- oriented up-rearing in a home where
music reigned supreme.
This isolation during childhood marked Langgaard's personality and cast
a shadow over the composer's entire personal and professional life. The abstract
and immaterial artistic world became, as it were, more real for Langgaard than
the challenges and demands of reality itself. He regarded his artistic work as a
duty and calling. Although Langgaard's attitude was often that of an
intellectual aristocrat, in reality he was not the intellectual type, but rather
an impulsive artist who allowed his moods and emotions to guide him.
In 1905 Langgaard made his debute at age eleven as an organist and
improvisor in Copenhagen. However organ playing did not interest him as much as
composition, and in 1908 a large Langgaard work for soloists, choir and
orchestra was premiered. This work was cut down by Copenhagen music critics,
whose relationship with Langgaard remained strained and openly critical
throughout the composer's life.
One should not underestimate the press' contempt for Langgaard when
trying to determine why the composer constantly experienced difficulties in
getting his compositions performed. Problems concerning performances began
already with Langgaard's impressive first symphony (completed in 1911). After
attempting, in vain, to get the hour-long work premiered in Copenhagen and
Stockholm, the Langgaard family (with support from patrons) managed to get the
symphony performed in Berlin in 1913 at a pure Langgaard concert with the Berlin
Philharmonic and Max Fiedler. The performance was a success and the concert
became the culmination of Langgaard's career as a composer.
The opportunities to have large demanding compositions performed in
Copenhagen were few and far between in those days, and it is a sad fact that the
works Langgaard himself considered to be some of his most substantial, Sinfonia
interna (1915-16), Sfærernes Musik (The Music of the
Spheres; 1916-18) and the opera Antikrist(Antichrist;
1921-23), were not performed in Denmark during the composer's lifetime.
In the beginning of the 1920s things apparently brightened up for
Langgaard internationally. A couple of orchestral works and his 2nd, 4th and 6th
symphonies were performed in Darmstadt, Essen, Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe,
Berlin and Vienna (often with himself as conductor), and his chamber and piano
music was heard in Karlsruhe, Paris and Prague. Langgaard appears to have had an
especially attentive young audience in Karlsruhe, where the performance of his
experimental 6th symphony received great enthusiasm - quite a different reaction
in comparison to the scandal which arose after the symphony's 1923 premiere in
Copenhagen by the famous Blüthner Orchestra from Berlin. However,
Langgaard's success in Germany was sporadic and shortlived. After 1924 he only
set foot outside Denmark for summer vacations in Sweden.
The big turning point in Langgaard's life came in 1924/25. After having
been, for years, one of several young Carl Nielsen- inspired avantgarde Danish
composers, Langgaard changed his mind and fell back to a derivative late
romantic style. At the same time he renounced modern music and all of its ways
(this did not, however, include his own progressive works!). In 1927 Langgaard
began to publicly polemize against the undisputed leader of modern music, Carl
Nielsen, and his followers. At the same time he founded a music society called "The
Music Society for Boring People," as a form of protection against the
progression of jazz. This new society soon folded. Langgaard's isolation and
fate in Danish music culture was firmly determined within a few years. His life
became marked by despair concerning his position as a "cultural composer"
(as he labelled himself) for an unsympathetic, hard-headed and spiritless age
controlled by materialism, objectivity and societal concerns. From this point on
performances of Langgaard's works were only given by the Danish state radio, who
felt a certain obligation towards the composer.
The most tragic element of Langgaard's situation during these years was
his failure to attain his greatest wish: a position as a church organist. The
fact that one of the most gifted organists Denmark has ever known was unable to
get a church job, even though he applied, year after year, to almost every
available position shows both the pronounced absence of magnanimity in Denmark's
musical culture of the 1930s and the period's lack of respect for the romantic
tradition represented by Langgaard. In 1940 Rued Langgard, then 47 years
old, finally received his first and only permanent position as organist and
cantor at the cathedral in Ribe, a little provincial town in Southern Jutland.
Although Langgaard was pleased with the position, being sent so far from
Copenhagen must have made him feel like an exile. In Ribe Langgaard concentrated
on his ecclesiastical duties and compositional activities. Langgaard died
shortly before his 59th birthday in 1952, leaving more than 400 compositions:
sixteen symphonies, numerous other orchestral works, an opera in various
versions, a number of vocal works with orchestra, string quartets and violin
sonatas, a large quantity of piano and organ compositions and well over a
hundred songs.
Langgaard's Music
Langgaard's approach to music was anti-academic. He was an artist who
was completely dependent upon inspiration and he preferred to follow his ear and
his intuition rather than academic formulas and good form. He was 'haunted' by
inspiration during two periods, 1914-18 and 1947-49, when large and small works
alike incessantly pushed themselves upon him. Problems concerning compositional
techniques were unknown to Langgaard; entire symphonies were drafted in a matter
of days.
This impulsive manner of composing was one of the reasons why
Langgaard's artistic development was anything but regular. Both stylistically
and in respect to Langgard's relationship to music, three marked changes stand
out in the composer's oeuvre. The years 1916, 1924 and 1946 divide Langgaard's
musical output into four phases which could respectively be called an objective
(late romantic) phase, a personal (experimental) phase, an anonymous (classical)
phase and a private (absurd) phase.
From the beginning Langgaard was oriented towards the traditions of the
German speaking area (as was normal for the period before the 1st World War).
His music was never decisively touched by what one might call a Danish or Nordic
sound. Instead the inheritance from Schumann, Liszt, Wagner and Richard Strauss
clearly distinguished itself throughout the whole of Langgaard's compositional
career. The years 1916-1924 were Langgaard's "modern" period when he
created a bold, visionary and static music such as Sfærernes Musik, as
well as works characterized by an antagonistic apocolyptic universe like the 6th
symphony (Det Himmelrivende; The Heaven-Rending), the opera Fortabelsen
(Antikrist) (Damnation (Antichrist)) and the String Quartet No. 3.
During these years Langgaard often abandoned the romantic musical language and
adopted a more expressive, modernistic style.
While other composers found security in neo-classicism during the
turbulent and unpredictable 1920s, Langgaard searched for "pure truth"
in an unproblematic, almost anonymous neo-romantic style that he adopted in
1924/25. According to Langgaard, the future of music could now only be based on
Romanticism, especially the late works of Niels W. Gade and Wagner. The radical
change in Langgaard's composition style can perhaps best be heard through a
comparison of his 3rd and 5th string quartets. Although only one year separates
these two works, stylistically they sound as if they are separated by at least
half a century. At the same time a period was introduced in Langgaard's life and
production which could be called "the 20 lean years."
Except for the two-hour long organ work, Messis ("Harvest"
in Latin), Langgaard composed almost no new music in the 1930s. Instead his time
was spent editing and reworking earlier works and composing a piano concerto
based on some of his father's compositions.
Langgaard's arrival in Ribe in 1940 helped his productivity. In the
mid-1940s he entered into his final, almost manic phase of production with the
bizarre, 7 minute-long Symphony No. 11 (requiring five tubas!). During the
following years Langgaard composed a series of strange, absurd and irregular
works expressing desperation, helplessness and protest (For example: ultra-short
or "wild" movements, circular compositions, music without conclusions
or designed to be played "indefinitely"). These works provide an
unexpected but essential contribution to the understanding of Langgaard's split
universe, which, in a paradoxical way, brings Romanticism's dream of beauty,
goodness and truth face to face with the 20th century's alienation,
destructiveness, dissolution and absurdity.
Problems concerning the catalogue of works
Luckily Rued Langgaard's widow, Constance Langgaard, took good care of
the papers her husband left behind. Shortly after his death she got into contact
with Denmark's national music collection at The Royal Library in Copenhagen.
Consequently Langgaard's music manuscripts, important papers concerning music,
photographs and personalia were bequeathed to the library after Constance
Langgaard's death in 1969; hence all principal sources for Langgaard's
comprehensive production are now held in The Royal Library.
Constance Langgaard did everything she could to make heads and tails of
her husband's music manuscripts, but she was unable to get a clear overview of
Langgaard's complete production due to the amount and the character of the
source material. Composers of Langgaard's type, those who are able to toss off
one composition after another, are usually characterized as quickly forgetting
what has just been completed in order to focus upon something new. However, this
description does not fit Langgaard. His impulsive and hectic qualities were
coupled with the apparent habit of never abandoning a composition - old ideas
always floated around in his mind (his musical memory was legendary). Thus
Langgaards entire output is characterized by repeated revisions, reworkings,
title changes and the recycling of earlier works in new contexts. Consequently,
it can be very difficult to define and demarcate a work with respect to its
music and manuscripts, especially when that work is part of an intricate complex
of compositions.
Only a small number of Langgaard's 432 registered compositions were
published during his lifetime (among these some of his most interesting music,
Sfærernes Musik and Symphony No.6). His impulsive working method often
entailed unorganized and inconsistent corrections in both his manuscripts and
published works. In addition, dates were often added and corrected post factum.
Consequently, Langgaard's manuscripts are filled with imprecise dates, incorrect
information concerning performances (recorded according to memory) and other
information that is seemingly correct, but has been proven to be unreliable.
Langgaard was fond of changing the titles of his works (sometimes as many as 10
to 12 times for a single piece). In addition he sometimes used the same titles
for various compositions; one can imagine the biographical problems involved.
This situation is not made any better by the fact that a great many sketches are
missing. It is almost unnecessary to point out that Langgaard did not keep a
diary or other written record of his composing activities and/or the
performances of his works. In other words, attempting to compile a catalogue of
this strange man's compositions is a bit of a challenge to say the least.
It took me the better part of fourteen years to work through the
sources. All the connections between the various manuscripts had to be surveyed,
and an attempt had to be made to identify all the sketches. It soon became
apparent that not only the primary sources - autograph music manuscripts - but
also a number of secondary sources such as letters, concert programmes, reviews
and private papers had to be consulted in order to unravel the circumstances
around the creation and publication of Langgaard's compositions.
An unusual aid which has proven helpful in elucidating the chronology of
Langgaard's output is the composer's penmanship. Langgaard had a very complex
personality which was reflected in his handwriting. The character of his writing
style changed many times; by comparing dated letters and other documents with
the handwriting found in music manuscripts one can often figure out, sometimes
with the margin of a few months, when a given manuscript was completed and when
additions and/or corrections were made. Of course one must be cautious not to
make rigorous conclusions solely on the grounds of handwriting.
The following example illustrates what was meant above by the term "complex
of compositions" and how essential it is that a detailed chronology of
Langgaard's output be explained:
- In 1917-18 Langgaard composed an orchestral work with the title Sommersagnsdrama
(Summer Legend's Drama). It was premiered in Copenhagen in 1919 and
revised shortly thereafter by the composer (Score 1).
- In 1920 Langgaard re-used a large part of the composition in a new work
entitled Symfonisk Festspil (Symphonic Festival Play). This
piece was performed in Copenhagen, Berlin and Vienna (Score 2).
- In 1925 the composer shortened the revised original and included it (Score
3) in his series of symphonies, first as Symphony No. 6 and shortly after as
Symphony No. 5. This version was performed in 1927 in Copenhagen.
- Around 1930 Langgaard changed the title of the 1920 version (Score 2: Symfonisk
Festspil) to Symphony in F Major (No. 5). However, he was not pleased with
incorporating this work in the symphony series, for in 1931 he used this music
as the starting point for the "final" version of Symphony No. 5,
which, after a number of proposals, was finally entitled Steppenatur (Sommersagnsdrama)
(Steppe Landscape (Summer Legend's Drama) (Score 4). This
version was premiered on the Danish state radio in 1937.
- Langgaard had not, however, given up the earlier version of Symphony No. 5
(Score 3); around 1933 he supplied the manuscript with the indication "Version
1" and at the same time labelled the 1931 version "Version 2."
- Finally in 1940-41 Langgaard reconstructed and revised the first version of
the work from 1917-18 (Score 5). After a number of various title proposals
Langgaard decided in the end to call this as yet unperformed version Saga
blot (A Thing of the Past). In Langgaard's personal papers this
version is sometimes called "1st Version of Symphony No. 5" - and with
that the confusion is shown in its totality!
Where one version of a piece ends and the other begins, and what one
should interpret as parallel versions of a piece as opposed to new versions that
take the place of an older version, are, as one can imagine, vital questions
with respect to Langgaard's output. It is of no use to try and guess what
Langgaard did in fact intend in every case. However, the problem often solves
itself as all the pieces of the many complexes fall into place and the
chronology becomes clarified. I found that the best way to deal with this
problem was to use only two principal categories in the Langgaard catalogue: "revision"
and "reworking".
A revision is defined as the sum of minor changes to a
composition. It is assumed on principle that the revised version replaces the
original version, and the work is therefore chronologically catalogued according
to the date of the original composition. On the other hand, a reworking
involves more extensive changes such as the addition of new material or an
essential abridgement. Changes such as these effect the form, character and/or
length of the original composition. The reworked versions of a composition are
described as independent entries, thus they are chronologically catalogued
according to the date of the reworking. If two versions of a piece bear the
exact same title, this is indicated by an additional designation, for example "[version
1942]". Completely different works bearing the same title are distinguished
by the addition of a Roman numeral, for example "[I]", "[II]",
etc.
The compilation of the Langgaard catalogue of works required the use of
a structure which was in agreement with the nature of the existing source
materials, but unfortunately a useful model for such a catalogue structure was
not at hand. From the start it was clear to me that merely registering the data
found in the manuscripts would lead to the presentation of a great deal of
misleading information which could only be of use to someone who could actually
study the primary sources and differentiate what was original and what had
perhaps been added and/or changed at a later date. In other words, the specific
data concerning each work had to be thoroughly studied and interpreted in order
to present an acceptable conclusion. However, the usage of standardized, edited
data (that does not necessarily agree with what one sees in the primary sources)
requires some sort of an elaboration or explanation. In Langgaard's case a
comprehensive set of annotations was required in order to give data concerning
variants and irregularities and information such as previous titles of a work,
song text sources, important performances and a number of other things.
The methodology behind the solutions to Langgaard's many detailed
bibliographical problems is too broad a topic to be dealt with here. I have
written about it in the Catalogue of Works. Although this catalogue is in
Danish, an English introduction as well as a comprehensive Danish-English word
list have been included.
Langgaard Today
One might get the impression that, all in all, too much fuss has been
made over this composer, who may be considered inferior due to his lack of
influence on his contemporaries and whose importance and artistic appearance is
still puzzling, even though much of his music has already become known.
Therefore, I think it proper to close this introductory article with a brief
description of a few of the aspects that today draw attention to Langgaard.
One need not hear many of Langgaard's compositions before one realizes
that musical "style" serves as an important parameter in his music.
Langgaard's works contain a wide variety of styles and in many cases stylistic
juxtaposition can be found within a single movement. Langgaard was obviously
conscious of style as a musical device in itself. Even though his compositions
often sound like romantic or late-romantic works, the structure and time
sequences in his music do not agree with classical principles. Langgaard
generally composed in blocks or modules. Each block is individualized by its own
musical "character" or its own "mood" or "sound."
Concepts such as these were more important for Langgaard than thematic or
motivic significance. Langgaard was not interested in musical "development"
or the arrangement of musical material within the framework of say, for example,
a sonata form or variation form. He experimented especially with the single
movement form (eight of his sixteen symphonies are one movement works - and
eight are in F Major!), and his music generally has a complex, rhapsodic or even
improvised character. The absence of musical processes in Langgaard's "block-
constructed form" along with the extreme brevity of a number of his
compositions (including orchestral works as short as 1 minute in length) aid in
lending his music a breathless, restless character, which is far from the the
breadth of expression found, for example, in the works of Bruckner - one of
Langgaard's ideals. If one looks at Langgaard's 16 symphonies this decisive
difference in style is clearly revealed: Langgaard's longest slow movement is
only nine minutes in length, and his longest scherzo lasts a mere four minutes!
It is not motives and themes that holds a Langgaard composition
together, but rather a style which is connected to a specific world of sound.
Each work forms its own "soundspace". Often a personal, symbolic value
lies within the various expression of style; for example Langgaard felt that the
Danish composer Niels W. Gade (1817-90) was of special importance, and he often
refered to Gade in his compositions. Langgaard's music also reminds of composers
such as: Schumann, Wagner, Richard Strauss, early Schönberg, Debussy and
Carl Nielsen. But now and then Langgaard's music suddenly sounds as if it could
have been written during the decades following Langgaard's own times: tone
clusters, collage music, open form, minimalism, New Age ...
Even though Langgaard was considered by his contemporaries to be
anything but progressive, and even though his musical language (although not his
concepts of form) was often notoriously ultra-conservative, Langgaard was an
artist with a visionary imagination. In his own unique way he anticipated
phenomena which did not become part of music history until after his death.
Langgaard ascribed crucial importance to the spiritual and religious
message of music. His spiritual baggage - made up primarily of his father's
philosophical "system," a cosmic- religious vision of the world in
which music is understood as a spiritual factor of power that contributes
directly to the salvation of man - was the starting point for his
characteristic, but diffuse world of thoughts. This world partially formed the
background for his process of composition (one could say that Langgaard
considered himself somewhat of a medium) and served as the framework within
which he interpreted his own music.
Langgaard's compositions often carry descriptive titles that are tied
either to Danish history, nature or an apocalyptic, religious universe: Afgrundsmusik
(Music of the Abyss), Flammekamrene (The Chambers of Flames)
and Vanvidsfantasi (Rage Fantasia) (all for piano), Begravet
i Helvede (Buried in Hell) (for organ), Undertro (Belief
in Wonders) (Symphony No. 13) and Syndflod af Sol (A Flood of
Sun) (Symphony No. 16).
The intensity of expression and direct musical pleasure which often
radiated from Langgaard's works impress most listeners. There is something
insistent about this music; the spiritual power behind it makes itself felt.
Langgaard did not worry in a petty way about banality or borrowing from
other composers. Cool contemplation and artistic planning were never part of
Langgaard's style - irrationality held a prominent place in his art. His music
is a fearless and ecstatic artist's sonorous imaginings, and as such it is free
of intellectual reflection. Thus Langgaard's music is not easily measured by a
compass or ruler; for the most part it defies logic and eludes rational
assessment. Consequently musicologists will fail when applying the usual tools
of measurement - this also counts for Charles Ives (1874-1954), whose music and
world of ideas contain certain parallels with the music and special universe of
Langgaard. With Langgaard music also often seeks to hold on to memories from the
unspoiled world of childhood. An interpretation of Langgaard's music therefore
requires the use of untraditional methods. The concept of Symbolism seems to be
a key to the understanding of Langgaard's music.
One of the most fascinating things about a composer like Langgaard is
the presence of the irrational, the bizarre and the unpredictable. This is
clearly shown in one of Langgaard's last and (for good reasons) never performed
compositions, Søndagssonate (Sunday Sonata), a fifteen
minute-long piece for violin, piano, organ and large orchestra - however, the
orchestra does not participate until the last 16 measures (in tempo Presto)! Is
this art or simply raving-mad nonsense? It is at least music which challenges
the mind and exceeds the aesthetic boundaries of art. It is actually what one
calls meta-music: music that debates the issue of music as an artform - its
means and goals.
Because life and work were almost inseparable for Langgaard, his
importance stretches, in a strange way, beyond the person and his biography,
beyond the narrow assessment of the artistic autonomy and quality of the
individual work. In Langgaard's music 19th-century ideals come face to face with
the reality of the 20th century. But the result is not necessarily the
production of artistically successful or clarified works, on the contrary the
results often present thought-provoking works brimming with expression. Rued
Langgaard was indeed an outsider, but his life and output cast an interesting,
although perhaps not directly flattering, light on Danish music history.
List of works: Bendt Viinholt Nielsen: Rued Langgaards
Kompositioner. Rued Langgaard's Compositions. An Annotated Catalogue of Works.
With an English Introduction. Odense University Press, 1991; 561 pp. ISBN 87
7492 780 9.
Biography (in Danish): Bendt Viinholt Nielsen: Rued Langgaard.
Biografi. Copenhagen: Engstrøm & Sødring, 1993; 334 pp.
ISBN 87 87091 607.
Originally published in FONES ARTIS MUSICAE, vol. 42, no. 1, Jan. - March
1995. |