Langgaard - Symphonies 2 & 6; J Gade - Tango Jalousie

Sakari Oramo, Anu Komsi (soprano), Sakari Oramo (violin), Wiener Philharmoniker

The music of Danish composer Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) enjoyed little success in his lifetime and, in the decade-and-a-half after his death, fell into complete neglect. The only child of musical parents and something of a prodigy, Langgaard scored some notable successes early in his career, not least the premiere of his First Symphony in 1911 by the Berlin Philharmonic in a concert devoted to his music. But his heady brand of late Romanticism, strongly influenced by Liszt, Wagner and Richard Strauss, though well received in Germany and Austria, was out of step with trends in his native Denmark, where Carl Nielsen’s determinedly anti-Romantic aesthetic was dominant. Most of Langgaard’s life was spent struggling (and railing) against the Danish musical establishment, and it was not until 1940 that he even managed to secure a full-time job, as a cathedral organist – and, even then, only in the provincial town of Ribe on Denmark’s south-west coast.

Over the last fifty years, however, the rediscovery of Langgaard’s music has gradually and, since the centenary of his birth, firmly established him as one of Nordic music’s most fascinating ‘outsiders’. Much of the recent revival in Langgaard’s fortunes is thanks to the efforts of the Dacapo label, which already boasts a fine cycle of his symphonies under the estimable Thomas Dausgaard. (There should also be honourable mentions for the Danacord and Chandos labels for their contributions.) Now Dacapo goes a step further by managing to coax the revered Wiener Philharmoniker under Sakari Oramo into recording two of Langgaard’s most striking orchestral works, the Second and Sixth Symphonies. This is the same team whose critically-acclaimed account of Per Nørgard’s First and Eighth Symphonies walked off with a Gramophone Award for best contemporary recording in 2015, and the results this time round are arguably even more impressive.

For a start, Langgaard’s music fits the Vienna Philharmonic like a glove. It’s most obvious in the Straussian opulence of the Second Symphony, subtitled ‘Vaarbrud’ (Awakening of Spring). Composed in 1912-14, premiered in Copenhagen to little enthusiasm, it was subsequently performed to great acclaim in Essen, Berlin, and even Vienna (by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra). Their present-day near neighbours in the Philharmonic clearly relish the music’s extravagant late-Romantic soundworld. This is most evident in the richly scored opening movement with its swooping horns and echoes of Till Eulenspiegel, but also in the prayer-like slow movement (based in part on a Danish Christmas hymn which lends a Parsifal-like mood, and with some magical shimmering textures), and the finale, where soprano Anu Komsi in radiant voice sings Langgaard’s setting of Emil Ritterhaus’s Lenzklänge (Spring Sounds), bringing more Straussian parallels to the fore. Splendidly played, and with unerring mastery of the episodic shifts of gear by Oramo, it’s the sort of performance of which Langgaard must have dreamt, and goes straight to the head of the catalogue for this remarkably assured work.

By the time he wrote his Sixth Symphony (1919-20, subtitled ‘The Heaven-Rending’), the seeds of Langgaard’s later depression had set in, and with it doom-laden assessments of the world in general and cultural life in particular. Here, Langgaard pits Christ against the ‘Antichrist’ (for which latter one could variously substitute musical modernism or the despised Nielsen). This battle of worldviews resulted in some of Langgaard’s most adventurous and radical music, cast as a set of variations of which the theme is heard in two versions (Christ and Antichrist respectively) before battle is joined in a series of compact variations with subtitles like Fugue, Toccata and Sonata. Only in the Coda is a hard victory eventually won in a blaze of F major, eight apocalyptic trumpets cutting across the sound of the full orchestra and thundering timpani. Once again, Oramo and the Vienna Phil rise to the challenge of Langgaard’s deeply personal music with infectious enthusiasm and suitably grandiose textures.

To bring the temperature down a little, Oramo and the Philharmonic’s strings then deliver a meltingly gorgeous performance of Unnoticed Morning Stars, the self-standing second movement of Langgaard’s Symphony no.14 ‘The Morning’ (1947-48), music that the composer never heard in his lifetime (it was first performed in 1979). It inhabits something of the same nostalgia-laden beauty of late Strauss, but with a very personal voice of its own, and makes a fine standalone work, especially when the tone is as rich yet pliable as that of the Vienna strings.

That’s not where proceedings end, however. Oramo turns violinist as he leads the orchestra in perhaps the most famous piece of Danish music ever written, Jacob Gade’s Tango Jalousie. Written by Gade (1879-1963) in New York for the 1925 Douglas Fairbanks film ‘Don Q, Son of Zorro’, and immortalised on disc by the Boston Pops under Arthur Fiedler, it is the work of a composer who was as successful and popular as his compatriot Langgaard was neglected and misunderstood. One can only imagine what Langgaard himself might have thought of this coupling, but in the hands of these performers it makes a hugely enjoyable ‘lollipop’ to end an unusually fascinating and stunningly well-performed disc.

Extensive, detailed notes by Jens Cornelius, and demonstration class surround sound  recording from Vienna’s Konzerthaus seal the deal: this may well prove one of the orchestral discs of the year. If you’re already a Langgaard admirer, you’ll need to hear this; if you are yet to savour his music, it’s now the ideal place to start!