Here we are again, the birthday of Rued Langgaard. The months just fly by, don’t they?

Langgaard lived from 1893 to 1952. Despite a promising start – born to musical parents, a prodigious childhood, meetings with major conductors, and a symphony performed by the Berlin Philharmonic – his personal and creative eccentricities worked against him.

Langgaard was 46 by the time he managed to obtain a permanent job, as an organist at the cathedral in Ribe. It was the oldest town in Denmark, and situated far, far from Copenhagen, the center of Danish musical life. He would die in Ribe at the age of 59.

Langgaard composed over 400 pieces. Perpetually out of step with the times, and particularly with the tastes of his fellow Danes, performances of his music were scarce. He found himself ignored by the musical establishment, with the result that his achievements really only started to be recognized in the 1960s – 16 years after his death.

It was in 1968 that no less a personage than György Ligeti found himself on a jury alongside Danish composer Per Nørgård. In this capacity, he examined a large number of new scores by Scandinavian composers. Unbeknownst to his fellow jurors, Nørgård had slipped in the score of Langgaard’s “Music of the Spheres.” Ligeti became captivated by what he found. When the ruse was revealed, he exclaimed, with a twinkle in his eye, “Gentlemen, I have just discovered that I am a Langgaard epigone!”

Langgaard had anticipated some of the technical aspects – tone clusters, layers, and so forth – which would appear in Ligeti’s avant garde experiments of the 1960s, in works such as “Atmosphères.”

It was a Rued awakening that was long overdue.

Langgaard’s “Music of the Spheres” (1918):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j959i5k6RjM

Ligeti’s “Atmosphères” (1961):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI0P1NnUFxc

PHOTOS: Kindred eccentrics, Rued Langgaard (top) and György Ligeti