Langgaard: Piano Music

On this CD:

1. Blumenvignetten BVN 56: No. 1, Rothblühender Dorn
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

2. Blumenvignetten BVN 56: No. 2, Seeblume
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

3. Blumenvignetten BVN 56: No. 3, Vergissmeinnicht
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

4. Blumenvignetten (Flower Vignettes) for piano, BVN 56: No. 4, Tausendschön
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

5. Stambogsblad for piano, BVN 38
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

6. Sommerferie i Blekinge for piano, BVN 123: No. 8 Paa Tur
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

7. Sommerferie i Blekinge for piano, BVN 123: No. 9 Afsked
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

8. Gitanjali-Hymner for piano, BVN 149: No. 7, Den hvileløse Vind
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

9. Flammekamrene, for piano (The Fire Chambers), BVN 221
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

10. Smaa Sommerminder (Remembrances of Summer) for piano, BVN 254: No. 1, Engang
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

11. Smaa Sommerminder (Remembrances of Summer) for piano, BVN 254: No. 2, Allegretto
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

12. Smaa Sommerminder (Remembrances of Summer) for piano, BVN 254: No. 3
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

13. Smaa Sommerminder (Remembrances of Summer) for piano, BVN 254: No. 4, Sang. Tranquillo
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

14. Sonata for piano No 3, "Minder fra Hestens Tid"
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

15. Skyggeliv (Shadow Life), BVN. 307
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

16. Blomstervignetter for piano, BVN 424: No. 1, Rødtjørn
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

17. Blomstervignetter for piano, BVN 424: No. 2, Aakande
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

18. Blomstervignetter for piano, BVN 424: No. 3, Forglemmigej
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

19. Blomstervignetter for piano, BVN 424: No. 4, Tusindfryd
Composed by Rued Langgaard
Performed by Peter Froundjian

Tracks:

Five Songs: 1. Sang bag Ploven
Five Songs: 2. Dangang Doden var i vente
Five Songs: 3. I aften
Five Songs: 4. Irmelin Rose
Five Songs: 5. Min Pige er saa lys som Rav
String Quartet No. 3 (1924): I Poco allegro rapinsoso - The Miro String Quartet
String Quartet No. 3 (1924): II Presto scherzo artifizioso - The Miro String Quartet
String Quartet No. 3 (1924): III Tranquillo - The Miro String Quartet
Concerto For Violin And Orchestra, Op. 33: I Praeludium, Largo; Allegro cavalleresco - Saeka Matsuyama, Violin
Concerto For Violin And Orchestra, Op. 33: II Poco adagio; Rondo, Allegretto scherzando - Saeka Matsuyama, Violin

Album Description

In 1999, the government of Denmark sponsored a festival of Danish arts in New York City. The culminating event of this festival was the Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition, which included attendance by Her Majesty, Margrethe II, Queen of Denmark. This disc features Silver Medalist Saeka Matsuyama's electrifying competition performance of Carl Nielsen's Violin Concerto, accompanied by Denmark's Odense Symphony Orchestra. Matsuyama's performance of the Nielsen Concerto also earned the 18-year old violinist the Odense Symphony Orchestra's Special Prize. Opening this celebratory disc is a stunning performance by the Miro String Quartet of Rued Langgaard's remarkable String Quartet No. 3. Considered to be among Langgaard;s finest compositions, the Miro Quartet gives a reading that had American and Danish critics reaching for superlatives. Rounding out this CD is a selection of songs by Carl Nielsen. Sung by the Danish baritone, Lars Thodberg Bertelsen, this group features some of Nielsen's most popular songs, including Irmelin Rose.

Rued Langgaard: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2

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Rued Langgaard: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2

Manufacturer: Marco Polo
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000060O3U
Release Date: 2002-04-23

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Rued Langgaard: Violin Sonatas, Vol. 2

Manufacturer: Da Capo [Naxos]
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0000DJELU
Release Date: 2004-01-20

Tracks:

Aubade (Morgenstanchen) (BVN 23; 1907)
Allegro Sempre. Praecist Og Egtertrykkeligt
Allegro
Scherzo. Grazioso Fiero
Espressivo
Finale. Allegro Molto
Short Violin Sonata (BVN 372; 1949)
Doux! Ikke Hurtigt (Not Fast)
Priere
Scherzo. Hurtigt, Elegant (Fast, Elegant)
Presto Furioso
Finale. Allegro
Praecist Og Eftertykkeligt (Percisely And Emphatically)
Samme Tempo (Praecist Og Eftertykkeligt) (Same Tempo)
Praecist Og Eftertykkeligt!
Praecist Og Eftertykkeligt!
Praecist Og Eftertykkeligt!
Andante Religioso (BVN 407; 1950)

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Rued Langgaard: Lieder

Manufacturer: Marco Polo
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000009L43
Release Date: 1996-01-18

Tracks:

5 Lieder: Im Mai!, BVN 50
5 Lieder: Sterben, BVN 49
5 Lieder: Fur dich!, BVN 44
5 Lieder: Ich kenn' den blassen Engel nur zu gut, BVN
5 Lieder: Das Auge!, BVN 47
Lieder von Goethe, BVN 60: Erinnerung
Lieder von Goethe, BVN 60: Gleich und Gleich
Lieder von Goethe, BVN 60: Blumengru
Lieder von Goethe, BVN 60: Vergeblich
Funf Lieder, BVN 77: Fruhlingsgru
Funf Lieder, BVN 77: Morgendammerung
Funf Lieder, BVN 77: Was ist mir denn so Wehe?
Funf Lieder, BVN 77: Ich weiss einen grossen Garten
Funf Lieder, BVN 77: Ein Fichtenbaum
Marienlied, BVN 76
Wakdeslieder, BVN 81: Du Quell
Wakdeslieder, BVN 81: Du tropfen Thau
Wakdeslieder, BVN 81: Waldvogelein!
Wakdeslieder, BVN 81: Du armer Wald!
Aus alten Marchen, BVN 85
Lyrisches Intermezzo von Heinrich Heine, BVN 101: Der Tod das ist die kuhle Nacht
Lyrisches Intermezzo von Heinrich Heine, BVN 101: Das ist ein Brausen
Lyrisches Intermezzo von Heinrich Heine, BVN 101: Mir traumte von einem Konigskind
Lyrisches Intermezzo von Heinrich Heine, BVN 101: Ein Fichtenbaum
Wer zum ersten Male liebt, BVN 87

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Langgaard: Piano Music

Manufacturer: Danacord Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000025W6P
Release Date: 1996-03-26

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Langgaard: Piano Music

Manufacturer: Danacord Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00008EYIO
Release Date: 1996-12-05

Average customer rating:

Rather Unformed but Generally Tuneful Piano Music

Rued Langgaard: Piano Works

Manufacturer: Marco Polo
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00076SHMA
Release Date: 2005-05-17

Customer Reviews:

Rather Unformed but Generally Tuneful Piano Music.......2005-05-19

There are composers whose fame rests as much with their peculiarities as with their music. One thinks of Sorabji, Alkan, Gurdjieff and others. Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) belongs in this group. He lived an essentially isolated life, living with his mother until her death in 1926 and then marrying her housekeeper. He never had much of a job until he finally became organist at a provincial Danish church where he remained until his death. He was shunned in Ribe, the provincial town in which he lived, and tended to sleep during the day, wander the streets at night. He composed voluminously and with few exceptions these works had few or even no performances. He was ignored even by the Danes, much less the world at large, until a minor reexamination of his works began in the past twenty years or so. I will admit that the only music of his that I knew was his 'Sfaerernes musik' ('Music of the Spheres'), a rambling and sometimes effective orchestral piece loaded with symbolist and religious subtext.

This disc presents several of his piano works, and indeed four of the five works purport to be receiving their first-ever recordings. 'Gitanjali-Hymner' ('Gitanjali Hymns') is a thirty-minute collection of 10 pieces, each inspired by a particular passage in Rabindranath Tagore's poetry (and those poems are reproduced in the very nicely done CD booklet). The musical language is rather like Grieg hybridized with Rachmaninoff, but the form of most of the pieces is somewhat rambling and even improvisatory. At times, frankly, it sounds like notated noodling. It is all very tuneful, not very harmonically adventuresome and at times banal. The booklet writer (Esben Tange, who I guess to be the pianists's husband) makes much of No. 8, 'Tavshedens Hav' ('The Sea of Silence'), primarily commenting about its illustration of this sentence of Tagore's: 'Let all my songs gather together their diverse strains into a single current and flow to a sea of silence.' But to my ears this is almost New Age strumming of the simplest sort.

'Fantasi-Sonate' ('Fantasy Sonata') from 1916 is a bit more interesting, and what is even more interesting is that Langgaard essentially rewrote it, shortening it drastically, in 1948, as the first movement of a new work, 'Vanvidsfantasi' ('Insanity Fantasy') that is, for me, the most compelling of the longer works on this disc. A three-movement work, 'Vanvidsfantasi,' is marked by long passages with the sustaining pedal held down, causing a kind of blurry sonic scrim through which the alternately dream-like and dramatic music emerges. The third movement is particularly dramatic and effective. It is of note that Langgaard may indeed have been suffering from a psychosis in the period surrounding the composition of this work, and Esben Tange reminds us that throughout his life Langgaard identified with the personal history of Robert Schumann (whose music his sometimes echoes) and particularly with Schumann's last years in which he was confined in a hospital for the mentally ill.

There is a very short innocuous Schumannesque work 'Nat Paa Sundet' ('Night on the Sound') written when Langgaard was thirteen. It is followed by the equally short 'Hél-Sfaerernes Musik' ('Hél-Sphere Music'; 'Hél' is cognate with our word 'Hell') which could not be more different from the dreamy 'Nat Paa Sundet'. It is bleak, dramatic, dissonant, fragmented and disturbing, and easily the most original music on the disc. One wishes one could hear more of Langgaard's music in this vein.

The pianist here is Berit Johansen Tange, a fine musician whose technical abilities are more than a match for this music's requirements. I suspect she gives this music as good an outing as it is likely to get any time soon. It's a shame there isn't much here to return to.

TT=67mins

Scott Morrison

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Langgaard: A Portrait in Chamber Music

Manufacturer: Classico
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

Classical | Imports | Stores | Music
ASIN: B00004WK86
Release Date: 2000-08-29

Average customer rating:

Polish your Danish

Danish Golden Age Piano Trios

Manufacturer: Marco Polo
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0000045RL
Release Date: 1995-12-12

Tracks:

Trio Movt in B flat: Adagio-Allegro con fuoco
Andantino & 8 Vars in C
Fjeldblomster (Mountain Flowers)
Bornetrio (Children's Trio) in G, op.31: Moderato
Bornetrio (Children's Trio) in G, op.31: Andantino-Allegro vivace-Andantino
Bornetrio (Children's Trio) in G, op.31: Allegro con fuoco
Pno Trio in f, op.53: Moderato con moto
Pno Trio in f, op.53: Allegretto piacevole-l'istesso tempo (scherzando)-Tempo I
Pno Trio in f, op.53: Allegro con brio, ma non troppo presto

Customer Reviews:

Polish your Danish.......2000-10-03

This fantastic record gives you an insight into not well known Danish composers, with the exception of maybe Gade.

It is amazing that such beautiful pieces are in the dark and thumbs up to dacapo for leting us to appreciate them. I specially liked Henriques Childre Trio, composed in 1904.

Performance is first rate and the pianist, Mr. John Damgaard does an excellent job. Recording is first rate.