RUED LANGGAARD
Piano Works
Berit Johansen Tange, piano

Rued Langgaard, composer

About
“Breathlessly, to the point of madness, like a wondrous reunion” … The expressive instructions, the evocative titles and the ecstatic sounds of Rued Langgaard’s piano works reflect the composer’s desperate longing to transcend the boundaries of our world. Yet Langgaard's Romantic striving was always filtered through his own modern consciousness to create sonorities that are as fascinating as they are unmistakably Langgaard.

This world premiere recording of Langgaard’s piano works displays the full spectrum of the composer’s mind with astonishing works like Insanity Fantasy, The Music of the Hél-Spheres and Gijantali Hymns. In some moments, Langgaard strives to express an ideal dream-world; in others, the unconscious with its night-black shadows is permitted to break through.

In the hands of young Danish pianist Berit Tange, all aspects of Langgaard’s music are brought to life, so that we sense the composer's genius as well as his madness; his nostalgia as well as his strange modernity.

Dacapo Records' next spectacular Langgaard release will be the mystery opera Antikrist on DVD in the spring of 2005.

Reviews
Eine Freude: Hervorragend gespielt, toll präsentiert
(Klassik.com, Germany)

Fascinating, virtually unheard repertoire
(ClassicsToday.com)

Berit Tange spiller varmt melodi- og gestusbevidst med fin sans for musikkens karakterskabende, lyrisk maleriske træk og spontant fantaserende særpræg.
(Politiken)

This CD, most lucidly and thoroughly annotated by the sympathetic and commandingly authoritative pianist, presents Langgaard to the world as a tortured soul whose delight in melody was equalled only by his despair over contemporary neglect
(Classical Music Web)

Berit Johansen Tange hat sich hörbar intensiv mit Langgaards Schaffen auseinander gesetzt. Eine bessere Anwältin seiner Sache hätte er sich nicht wünschen können.
(Piano News)

Very nicely recorded, Tange gets to the heart of this searching music, fully alive to the composer's multi-faceted and chaotic inspiration.
(Nordic Sounds)

Tange plays all this music with evident commitment and technical assurance. A well-recorded CD....
(International Record Review, uk)
Credits
Recorded at Mantziusgården, Birkerød on January 12-14 and 26-27 2004
Recording producer: Preben Iwan
Recording engineer: Preben Iwan
Graphic design: www.elevator-design.dk
Instrument: Steinway & Sons model D-274, nr. 566545
Steinway & Sons service engineer: Marc-Tell Klein