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Music of the Spheres is a symphonic work of great complexity, calling for a large orchestra, organ and choir, a supporting (distant) orchestra including a soprano voice, and a further piano on which the strings are played directly rather than via the keys.
For this new and important recording, Dausgaard couples Music of the Spheres with two later works by Langgaard - The Time of the End and From the Deep - bringing an overview to the composer’s music over a period of 35 years.
Thomas Dausgaard and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra will be performing the UK premiere of Music of the Spheres at this year’s Proms on 11th August.
Rued Langgaard: Staerernes musik (Music of the Spheres), BVN 128
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
Rued Langgaard: Endens tid (The Time of the End), BVN 243
I. Antichrist: Prelude
II. At the End of Time
III. Towards the End of the World
IV. The Catastrophe
Rued Langgaard: Fra dybet (From the Deep), BVN 414
Fra dybet (From the Deep), BVN 414
5th August 2010
***
“It's not great music, but it is startling for many of the effects it employs, using a huge orchestra with enormous restraint in a frieze-like construction juxtaposing mundane Romantic rhetoric with the textural and spatial ideas that attracted Ligeti's attention.”
5th September 2010
***
“Langgaard worked with texture and colour, and the forms he used are static or repetitive rather than organic. Yet, for me, there’s a disquieting naivety about this piece. Thomas Dausgaard and his fine forces are undeniably ardent champions.”
September 2010
“Dausgaard draw[s] every subtlety from a score whose often hushed dynamic level does not preclude a wealth of textual and motivic detail”
November 2010
*****
“Amazing, sometimes banal but never dull.”
November 2010
“Dausgaard's interpretation, brought vividly to this year's Proms to much acclaim, accentuates the textural subtleties of the score in a vibrant recording that achieves amazing quietude...[From the Abyss] rounds out this superbly played and recorded disc splendidly. Highly recommended.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
I. Like sunbeams on a coffin decorated with sweet smelling flowers
