Musically gifted

"We first discovered that he had a good ear when he was 9 months old. Now and then Siegfried played one of his Polonaise, and at one particular place in the music Rud, who was lying in his cot, threw up his arms in joy - and always at the same place."

Emma Langgaard with Rued in her arms. Section of an undated and unsigned watercolour, privately owned.

"When he was eighteen months old he was quite beside himself when I played Rubinstein's Sonata for Piano and Violin in A-minor, and it was not just the fact of listening to it, he loved sitting with the score himself and reading it while I played. Nothing delighted him more than to be allowed to hear the Sonata...".

" Now he is almost three... He quite clearly has a preference for rhythmic music, for serious and interesting sounds, for grandiose compositions with well-rounded motifs. It may sound strange, but I can clearly perceive that he loves music that is cast in a complete Form."

(Entries in Emma Langgaard's diary, dated 23.11.1896).

Professor Tage Nielsen, who got to know Rued Langgaard in the 1940's, makes the following remarks about Langgaards exceptional memory for music:

• Langgaard played Schumann from memory

• And remebered a work by Gade which had not seen for 40 years

• He knew all his own works by heart!