A Biographical Multimedia Mosaic...


Danmarks Radio


In the 1930's, Danish Radio, or the State Broadcasting Service as it then was called, acquired almost a monopoly as the promoter of music in Denmark. The old, illustrious music societies were all closing down, and in their absence the State Broadcasting Service felt a special obligation towards Danish composers. As a result, from 1930 onwards, and especially from 1943, many of Langgaard's works were broadcast as studio performances. The conductor, Launy Grøndahl, made a special effort on behalf of Langgaard's music, and twice performed his symphonies at the 'Thursday concerts'.



For Langgaard this was a love-hate relationship. He was completely dependent on the radio, which as time went on offered him the only possible chance of getting his works performed.

He sent in innumrable scores for evaluation, but never got used to being rejected. Every time he received on of the radio authorities' standard rejection letters he was deeply disappointed and very annoyed. For him the sovereignty of art was a fact, and he did not understand with what right the radio's consultants and programme committees disavowed his music.

Time after time he refused to accept the package when the radio authorities returned the rejected scores to him. The scores were therefore returned to the sender, and were then deposited in the radio archives for musical scores.

He also commented on the decisions of the radio authorities, as this illustration from 1938 shows. (Reproduced with the kind permission of Danish Radio, in whose archives the letter is preserved).

See yet another example of this.