The Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende published an article about Rued Langgaard and the Langgaard Festival in Ribe on September 11, 2013. The article explores the difficulties of raising money for the Rued Langgaard Edition and how important it is to publish Langgaard’s works in order to keep the music and memory of the somewhat eccentric composer alive.
Composer and Langgaard expert Bendt Viinholdt Nielsen explains:
“We think that Langgaard to a greater extent should be a national issue. If you really wanted to put something on the line here and get something like the Carl Nielsen Edition, then you perhaps need to put it through the Minister of Culture.”
Director of Edition·S – music¬sound¬art Rebecca Dawson also commented on the case:
“Think of a composer such as Gustav Mahler. He was also forgotten for many years. But orchestras and conductors revisited his works and opened our ears for him – and today the entire world knows his name.”
The rest of the article addresses the issue of raising money for the collection of Langgaard’s works. In 2009 Langgaard’s largest work, the opera Antikrist, was published and in 2011 his expansive Symphony no. 1 was also published – two spectacular publications of around 1 million Danish kroners each. In addition to these two remarkable works, Langgaard composed many other large-scale works, around 80 organ preludes and a large number of chamber, piano and choral works.
Read the entire article here (in Danish).
