Langgaard: Complete Works for Violin & Piano, Vol. 3

Featuring

Gunvor Sihm
Berit Johansen Tange
Rued Langgaard

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Composer's Artistic Vision

Rued Langgaard's music is characterized by great stylistic variation, often featuring complex and unconventional forms, and striving for expressive, image-creating, and visionary modes of expression, with elements anticipating 1960s avant-garde, minimalism, and postmodernism.

Composition History

Rued Langgaard's first work for violin, Aubade (1907), was dedicated to his uncle, violinist Axel Gade, who gave its first performance.

Cultural Impact

After Rued Langgaard's death in 1952, his music was largely forgotten until a performance of his work Music of the Spheres in 1968 initiated a renaissance, leading to his recognition as one of the most important Danish composers of the 20th century.

Performer Biography

Gunvor Sihm, the violinist on this recording, plays a Guarnerius from 1725, which is on loan from the Augustinus Foundation.

Performer Biography

Berit Johansen Tange, the pianist on this recording, has worked extensively with Rued Langgaard's music, including his solo piano works and songs, and performs annually at the Rued Langgaard Festival.

Composer Biography

Rued Langgaard, born in Copenhagen in 1893, made a remarkable debut as an organist and improviser at age 11, and his first symphony premiered in Berlin when he was 19.

Historical Context

In Denmark, the music scene regarded Rued Langgaard with skepticism, as his religiously and symbolically tinged music conflicted with the anti-Romantic, down-to-earth attitude prevalent after 1930, which followed the aesthetic track laid down by Carl Nielsen.