| Disc No: 8.224215 |
Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) was an odd, lonely figure in Danish music. His 16 symphonies make up a thought-provoking, original contribution to the history of the symphony. Symphony No. 4 is one of Langgaard’s most important and most frequently performed orchestral works, an “autumn diary” with evocations of various weather types and the related human moods. The summer is irrevocably over and nature and thought are held in the grip of decay, despair and a valedictory atmosphere. Symphony No. 5 is in a much more extroverted tonal idiom and is programmatically associated with a fantasy world, a ‘Nordic’ summer landscape dominated by heroic and legendary moods. The symphony exists in two different forms which the composer himself called Versions I and II – less than half the music is identical in the two works.
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