Zum Zehnten des Monats

von LePenseur

 

 

... brachte ich schon vor über einem Jahr die diese Nummer tragende Symphonie des von mir so geschätzten Großmeisters der russischen Symphonik des 20. Jahrhunderts, Nikolai Mjaskowski — also sei nun die No. 10 des von mir auch schon zweimal erwähnten dänischen Komponisten Rued Langgaard gebracht:

Unter diesem Video (sowie einem anderen, aber mit derselben Aufnahme) findet sich bei Youtube eine kurze Beschreibung des Werkes, die ich den geneigten Lesern nicht vorenthalten möchte:

 

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The piece has a motto that appears on the score: 

"What if I tempt you, my lord, to the dreadful summit of the cliff..." (from Shakespeare's Hamlet: Act 1, Scene 4) 

 

 According to Langgaard's manuscript datings, the writing of the symphony was begun in the spring of 1944. However, an uninsigned draft of the first three bars is dates as early as March 1943. The title refers to the rocky peninsula Kullen (Kullenberg) in Scania, Sweden, and was constructed by Lang-gaard from a depiction of Kullen in Steen Steensen Blicher's Ossian-inspired poem "Jyllandreise i sex Døgn" (1817): 

 "[...] yon cliff there, that hangs as black as clouds on foaming breakers, Yon gloomy rock is none of the hills of my birthland [...] So sombre and naked are not my leafy hilltops As this mountain ridge, the hall of the wind and thunder." 

The motto from "Hamlet" is from Horatio's warning to Hamlet that his father's ghost, whom they see on the bastions of the castle of Elinsore, may lure Hamlet to his death. Langgaard had an idea that the rock mentioned in Niels Møller's Danish translation had to be Kullen, which can in fact be glimpsed from the castle (on the other side of the sound) - since at Kronborg Castle itself there is only a flat sandy beach. The point of the motto, though, is hardly likely to be this highly dubious Kullen reference. It is evident from a couple of suggested titles for the symphony — "The Flying Dutchman" and "Flying Dutchman over Kullen" — that Langgaard viewed the work, with its clear reminiscences of Wagner and Richard Strauss, as a kind of phantom music.

Langgaard spent 26 summers at Kullen, and the symphony is an expres­sion of his love for the landscape there. But the composer also had another agenda, hinted at by the related motto from Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act One): "What if it tempts you to the dreadful summit of the cliff". This is said by Horatio, who fears that the ghost of Hamlet’s father will lure Hamlet out into the perils of the sea. Langgaard had an obsession that the cliffs mentioned in the lines must have been Kullen on the other side of the Sound. The one-movement symphony evokes the landscape in a series of atmospheric pictures with the emphasis on the dramatic and magnificent, as the title suggests. 

 

The work is very freely written, almost as if the four movements of a traditional symphony had been combined in a single one. It begins with a powerful and epic main theme, presented by the horn. It is followed by a dissonant and anxious second theme on strings. Minor motives are present as well, derived from the main theme. A brief pause leads us to a development section on these materials, very Wagnerian and Straussian in style. Woodwinds reference the main theme several times. 

 

In the middle part of the work, a lyrical passage of Nordic character takes place, unfolding in a meditative manner. A brief pause leads us to a rhythmic section, before it becomes slow and lyrical. A sudden, forceful passage rises, but fails to achieve a climax. The music becomes static for a while, before horn calls lead us to the final part. In it, themes and motives previously presented reappear in a dramatic manner. A Straussian coda of great vitality ends the work brilliantly.

 

*A page (or more) of the score is/are missing at 9:12 - 9:23 

 

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Es spielt das Dänische National-Radio-Symphonieorchester unter Thomas Dausgaard.