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.
“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.” The Guardian, 5th August 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.” Sunday Times, 5th 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” International Record Review, September 2010
“Amazing, sometimes banal but never dull.” BBC Music Magazine, 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.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2010
BBC Music Magazine Awards 2011
