Langgaard is being
thoroughly advocated by DaCapo. Here,
after a pause of three years, is the
second volume of their project to record
Langgaard's complete music for violin
and piano.
Apart from the Aubade
all the works here are from 1949 when
Langgaard’s composing took place between
3 a.m. and 7 a.m. each day. The scores
are both dated and timed. Only the Aubade
was published in his lifetime. The notes
are by Langgaard guru, Bendt Viinholt
Nielsen who has done so much for this
composer. As he points out the 1949
works all bear the stigmata of Langgaard's
infatuation with the three sonatas by
Schumann and the violin sonata of César
Franck.
The music is expressively
caught in full and ripely singing flood
buffeted by cross-currents from Tchaikovsky
and Brahms. One can distinguish similar
singing qualities in the early chamber
pieces of Frank Bridge, John Foulds
and Gabriel Fauré. While the
Third Sonata is in songful spate the
Fourth is more consolatory-reflective
- like early Delius. It becomes gradually
more stormy and dynamic in the Scherzo
and Presto furioso. The (very) Short
Sonata is much the same though plagued
with black moods and storm cloud. Ecrasez
l'Infâme is in five movements
stylistically of a piece with the Fourth
Sonata at first but then blowing away
the cobwebs with violent assaults from
the keyboard. This is almost the stuff
of which Antheil, Ornstein and Cowell
were made in the teens of the last century.
The violin stays comparatively true
to its romantically singing soul. Both
the Aubade and the Andante
Religioso are sweetly meditative
- profoundly serious in their focus
on beauty.
Anyone who relishes
the Delius Violin Concerto and can imagine
the style leavened by Schumann, Franck
and early Fauré must get this
very fine disc.
Rob Barnett
Serguei Azizian (violin)