Music at an odd angle

Rued Langgaard: The String Quartets

DaCapo is releasing a box set of Rued Langgaard's complete string quartets, recorded from 2010 to 2013, and released as three single discs during that period. I reviewed volume 3, the final disc in the series, back in 2015, and I couldn't be more positive about the Nightingale String Quartet's performances and DaCapo's recordings and presentation. As to the music itself, I'm an even bigger fan of Langgaard now that I'm more familiar with his symphonies, and his splendid opera The Antichrist.

This splendid portrait of the Nightingale String Quartet, included in DaCapo's really excellent liner notes, is by Nikolaj Lund, who has made a specialty of photographing classical musicians in new and surprising contexts and poses. But I like to think that this pose has a musical relevance as well; Langgaard's music is oddly out of phase within 20th century classical music. It's at an odd angle, if you will, to the various trends and orthodoxies of music in the 1900s, and that's partly why I find him so appealing. Kudos to these excellent musicians and to DaCapo for such a marvellous survey of this very fine music.




This bargain-priced three-CD album will be released on November 15, 2019.