Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) was a late romantic composer who never was able to gain acceptance in his native Denmark. His visionary, metaphysical, and symbolist compositions ran counter to the realist trend in music that prevailed in the early decades of the 20th century. Langgaard did not help matters in 1924 by turning his back on all things progressive in order to retreat into a highly Wagnerian late-romantic style, and then lashing out against the music of Carl Nielsen, a composer he had formerly and greatly admired. The Sinfonia Interna, as presented on the this Da Capo release, is an attempt to reconstruct a work that Langgaard himself never completed. The work began in 1916 as a five-movement “stage symphony” uniting text, music, and visuals into a transcendental metaphysical experience along the lines of Langgaard’s contemporary, Scriabin. However, Langgaard does not strive to create his own tonalities and harmonic language, but instead relies on religious music archetypes to conjure his desired states of being. The symphony failed to gain a performance and was revised repeatedly, with additional sections added, shortened, or recomposed over the next three decades.
The five surviving sections are as follows: 1. The Star in the East, for soprano and orchestra, which begins with an Il Tabarro-like rocking motion; 2. Sea and Sun, with a mezzo soloist; 3. The Dream, the longest section, which begins like a Brahms choral work and ends with a duet that would be at home in Act 2 of Parsifal; 4. Angelus, with two wonderful soprano solos set against organ-like sonorities in the orchestra, and 5. Epilogue, a very brief choral piece with a quiet orchestral ending. The text of all five sections is highly spiritual and replete with religious symbolism, making it somewhat of an arduous read. But the music itself is beautifully evocative, though understandably varied in style given its protracted genesis. The soloists, especially Anne Margrethe Dahl, sing with conviction, as does the Canzone Choir. The Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, while perhaps not quite world class, has been carefully prepared and Frans Rasmussen leads them in a fine realization of this reactionary yet captivating music. Da Capo’s recording places all the assembled forces in an appropriate, believable sonic and spatial perspective. A treat for lovers of post-Wagnerian romanticism.
