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Tag: Rued Langgaard

Pronouncing Composer Names The Announcer’s Dilemma

The discussion of the pronunciation of Rued Langgaard’s name (July 28 entry) reminds me of a blog entry I had written for the station a few years ago and never submitted. It’s always a quandary for the radio announcer: do you strive be scrupulously correct, or to be understood?

In the case of Langgaard, I feel I always have to spell his name after I say it. If I’m feeling particularly self-conscious that day and don’t want to try everyone’s patience (since I would need to elucidate both before and after the piece), I just say “LAHN-gourd.” It’s not strictly Danish, perhaps, but at least listeners have a chance of remembering the name and maybe hunting down some of the recordings.

That’s not to say I’m not in favor of authenticity! But I don’t know that I would use “Langoh” in regular conversation, just as I would tend not to clear my throat on the “ch” when I say “Bach.”

On a related matter, you have a composer like Jean Françaix. You would think the “x” would be silent, since he’s French, but allegedly he preferred the “x” to be sounded. Yet English speakers almost always say “Fron-SAY,” and that extends to classical music radio announcers.

I have over the years used the “x” on most occasions, but again since it requires an explanation so that listeners don’t think I’m a complete idiot, sometimes I just say screw it and go with the flow.

And what’s the consensus on Edward German: soft or hard “G?” He’s English, so I generally use the former, but then I got an email once that it’s supposed to be the other way.

Let’s call the whole thing off!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ3fjQa5Hls

August 3, 2014
Rued Langgaard Eccentric Danish Genius

Rued Langgaard, a name to challenge the English-speaking tongue if ever there was one, followed a vision quite unlike any other in Danish music. A precocious pianist, organist and composer, he studied theory under C.F.E. Horneman and later Vilhelm Rosenberg, with lessons in counterpoint, briefly, under Carl Nielsen.

His first compositions were published when he was 13. By the time he was 19, his first symphony was performed by the Berlin Philharmonic. After such a promising start, sadly it was all downhill from there.

Langgaard followed his own eccentric muse deep into the realm of late Romanticism at a time when most of the musical world was exploring modernist territory. Though he was given a state grant at 30, he failed to secure a permanent job until the age of 46, as an organist at the cathedral in Ribe, the oldest town in Denmark – which somehow seems appropriate for this most anachronistic of Danish outsiders.

An eccentric, shabby figure with wild hair, Laangaard died in Ribe 13 years later, in 1952, just shy of his 59th birthday, still largely unrecognized as a composer.

His reputation would not begin to gain traction for another 16 years. In all, he composed over 400 works, including 16 symphonies – which bear evocative titles such as “Yon Hall of Thunder” and “Deluge of the Sun” – and an opera, “Antikrist.”

Langgaard believed he was living in a corrupt age, the age of Antichrist, where the clash of good and evil was coming to a furious climax. The final movement of his “Music of the Spheres” suggests an encounter between Christ and his malevolent doppelganger.

“Music of the Spheres” was composed between 1916 and 1918. In the preface to the score, the composer describes the work as “celestial and earthly music from red glowing strings, on which life plays with claws of a beast of prey – life, with a crown of iris on its marble face and the stereotypical – yet living – demonic smile on its lily-white cheeks…”

The descriptive titles of the movements are as follows:

I. Like sunbeams on a coffin decorated with sweet-smelling flowers
II. Like the twinkling of stars in the blue sky at sunset –
III. Like light and the depths –
IV. Like the refraction of sunbeams in the waves –
V. Like the twinkling of a pearl of dew in the sun on a beautiful summer’s morning –
VI. Longing – Despair – Ecstasy –
VII. Soul of the world – Abyss – All Soul’s Day –
VIII. I wish…! –
IX. Chaos – Ruin – Far and near –
X. Flowers wither –
XI. Glimpse of the sun through tears –
XII. Bells pealing: Look! He comes –
XIII. The gospel of flowers – From the far distance –
XIV. The new day –
XV. The end: Antichrist – Christ

Here is Langgaard’s “Music of the Spheres”:

And his name pronounced by a native speaker, on Forvo:

http://www.forvo.com/word/rued_langgaard/

You go, Rued Langgaard! Happy birthday.

July 28, 2014

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