Rued Langgaard: Piano Music

Featuring

Peter Froundjian
Rued Langgaard

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Critical Reception

Only about 10% of Langgaard's works were published during his lifetime, and concert performances were rare, occurring only once or twice if at all.

Composer Biography

Langgaard's career began promisingly with the premiere of his 1st Symphony by the Berlin Philharmonic in 1913, but his star seemed to decline afterwards.

Composer Biography

Rued Langgaard, the composer, was considered the "compositeur maudit" of Danish music in the first half of the 20th century, despite having 431 compositions.

Composer Biography

Langgaard struggled for 25 years to secure a permanent organist position, finally being appointed cathedral organist in Ribe in 1940, where he felt like an "unloved outsider."

Composer Biography

Both of Langgaard's parents were pianists, trained by Norwegian Edmund Neupert, and his father, Siegfried Langgaard, attended Franz Liszt's summer courses.

Critical Reception

Conductor Rafael Kubelik and composer György Ligeti expressed surprise at the neglect of Langgaard's works, with Ligeti even stating, "I never knew that I was a Langgaard epigone" after seeing the score of "Sferemes Musik."

Interpretation

Composer Tage Nielsen described Langgaard's own piano playing as "rather unusual, shaped with extremely strong rubato, generous use of the pedals and sometimes almost hysterical espressivo."