Unjustly misunderstood, and at times even ridiculed or dismissed as an eccentric kook by critics of his day, Danish organist and composer Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) deserves to be ranked alongside Wagner, Richard Strauss, Bruckner, Mahler and the like. Described as "a white duckling who became an ugly swan", his early symphonies (he wrote sixteen) confirmed him to be one of the most promising Danish composers of his generation, but his later, more challenging symphonies were often frowned upon as being incomprehensible and abstruse. He may have suffered from a combination of delusions of grandeur (some passages of this symphony will attest to that), deep sadness, high sensibility, disillusionment, and feelings of dejection, all of which may have prophetically brought on his own demise. But just like Gustav Mahler, he was convinced that his time would come. And although belatedly so, I believe it has.

Allow me to make a stark analogy with the present time. Whilst most if not all teenagers today are texting on their cell phones 24/7, at the age of 14 Rued Langgaard, an autodidact composer, started work on his massive First Symphony. Coincidently, its premiere performance took place in Berlin with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1913. To put this in perspective, that was two years after Mahler had died and two years before the premiere performance of the Alpine Symphony by Richard Strauss, with which it shares some conceptual basis. It's an impressive 55 minute symphonic work laid out over five movements that sounds as if written by a seasoned composer, and not a self-taught teenager. Brilliantly orchestrated for large orchestra, with motivic and thematic development on par with the music of Gustav Mahler. Its final movement alone is a revelry of ideas brought together to great effect. Seriously, if the five or so minutes near the end don't capture your full attention, and the final minute doesn't leave you slack-jawed in amazement, maybe you should check your pulse. In this live recording of the world premiere recording of the 2010 critical edition by Bendt Viinholt Nielsen, conductor Sakari Oramo and the members of the Berlin Philharmonic certainly seem to be having the time of their lives.

To further explore and understand this brilliant composer, may I recommend you take a look at these previous reviews of his Symphonies 2 & 6, String Quartets, and organ work Messis.