Christmas Moods

Christmas Moods

By Bendt Viinholt Nielsen

Rued Langgaard (1893–1952) was an outsider and eccentric who experienced countless setbacks as composer and musician during his life, while his artistic victories were few. Though he yearned for a position as organist, he had to wait until 1941 before he was appointed to a secure position, as cathedral organist in Ribe. His romantic artistic outlook found no resonance in an anti-romantic and functionalist age. After his death much of his music was forgotten, and only anecdotes about this peculiar man kept his memory alive. But in the 1960s a renaissance for his music began. In the last 25 to 30 years Langgaard’s works have been published, recorded and performed extensively. Internationally, his major works have impressed, especially Symphony No. 1, Music of the Spheres, and his doomsday opera, Antikrist , which has recently played to full houses over several seasons at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin.

Like all the other music he wrote, Langgaard’s songs had to be ‘rediscovered’. The 132 songs he left date, for the most part, from the years 1914–1918, when he was at the beginning of his 20s. Only 27 songs were published during his lifetime, none of them securing a lasting place in the Danish song repertoire. The publication in 2016 of Langgaard’s complete songs provided the first opportunity to take an overview of his huge and valuable output of songs. Stylistically, his songs extend widely, from powerful romantic gestures to delicate sounding and impressionistic expressions.

A great number of the texts Langgaard set to music were by female authors. In this release it is only Langgaard himself who provides a text by a male. In the years around 1900 Jenny Blicher-Clausen (1865–1907) was a popular poet and novelist whilst Emilie Thorup (1857–1890) and the German Luise Hensel (1798–1876) were only known for their religious poetry. Langgaard came from a home where a missionary evangelism went in hand with Theosophical and symbolist ideas, and his music bears the stamp of that background. He wrote a number of spiritual songs and psalms in traditional four-part settings; however, the three songs on this release feature a piano accompaniment. ‘Nu stråler atter juleskær’ (The Glow of Christmas Gleams Once More) is from around 1919, while the To åndelige sange (Two Spiritual Songs) were originally composed in 1914, but revised in 1941–42. ‘Jeg er træt og går til ro’ (I Am Tired and Now Would Rest) can be found in Den Danske Salmebog (The Danish Psalm Book) is sung in church to a romantic melody by Jørgen Malling.

Jenny Blicher-Clausen’s four Christmas poems were published in 1907. In November 1915 Langgaard set them to music with the shared title, Jul (Christmas). ‘Juleklokkerne’ (The Christmas Bells) was the only one to be performed in Langgaard’s lifetime, and only twice: in 1916, and again 30 years later, when the song was performed in Ribe Cathedral with Langgaard’s wife, Constance, as soloist. Langgaard had revised the song in 1940, and it is the later version that is recorded here. Blicher-Clausen used church bells as a strong and recurring symbol in the four poems, which gave Langgaard rich possibilities to imitate the sound of bells, something he liked and did regularly, even in orchestral works. The accompaniment in ‘Julestemning’ (Christmas Mood) and ‘Det ringer på jord’ (On Earth There’s Ringing) allude to bells: in the central part of ‘Juleklokkerne’ they ring, then finally in the last section of three in ‘Julekvæld’ (Christmas Eve), we hear ‘from forest and valley’, the village church bells, ringing Christmas in. The bells bear witness to peace and happiness at Christmas time. The songs have an unusually positive mood for Langgaard, and a warm and uplifting atmosphere emanates from the little song cycle.

‘Ved Kyrkhult Kirke’ (At Kyrkhult Church) is the first of Fem sange (Five Songs), which Langgaard composed to his own words in 1915. He describes the summery atmosphere of the Swedish spa town Kyrkhult in Blekinge, where he had stayed with his parents for several summers, for the last time in 1913. All senses are activated in Langgaard’s text: we hear, feel and smell, and the atmosphere is made by what we see out in the distance, turning our gaze towards the sky and down towards the earth. The manifold sensory impressions on the church hill that Sunday morning are gathered, finally as a mournful sigh. The music is simple, with the character of a hymn and the tempo marking Andante religioso. Unusually, Langgaard had a certain degree of success with this song, which he accompanied himself on a number of occasions.