Search - Langgaard, Muus, Foula Dimitriadis :: Antichrist

The End of the World - Theosophist Style

Christopher Forbes | Brooklyn,, NY | 01/26/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Langgaard - AntichristLanggaard's great misfortune was that he was born in the wrong time. Essentially a mystic visionary, he was born just a few decades too late for the fin du siecle interest in Spiritualism, and yet too soon for the Age of Aquarius. And he was born in the wrong place. Had he spent his career in Germany, France, or perhaps Russia, he might have been able to find audiences for his unique, visionary music. But the Danes just weren't ready for him. They wanted someone like Nielsen...clear, logical and organic. Langgaard was none of these things. As a result, his works languished until the last decades of this century. Antichrist is Langgaard's only opera, and is in a sense his magnum opus. While it does not have the freshness of some of his more experimental works, the composer put all of his spiritual beliefs into the libretto and considerable ingenuity into the score. Anyone seriously wishing to understand this composer needs at some point to experience this unique opera. This Danacord CD, while not completely optimal, is the best way currently to get to know the work.Langgaard was the son of Theosophists and remained a Theosophist himself throughout his life. His approach, therefore, to the Apocalypse in this work is highly allegorical. The plot of the opera is slight. In the Prologue, Lucifer creates the Antichrist, with the secret and tacit approval of God. The remaining scenes show the progress of the Antichrist as he helps to sow woe among humans. Woe takes the form of materialism, greed, and the general modern despondency that paralyzes humans. In most of the scenes, characters speak past each other or speak in monologues. Some of the language is so symbolic as to be obscure, but in other places the allegory is thinly veiled. In the final scene, the Antichrist seems to have been given all power to destroy humanity as he rises out of a sarcophagus, and yet, with one word from God, Ephphatha (be opened in Aramaic) the Antichrist is consumed in flame and humanity is saved. Against this rather obscure text Langgaard composes some fine, fine music. Langgaard's music is often hard to classify. As a young man he was an experimenter with sound and structure, often juxtaposing almost Wagnerian music with sounds that suggest the music Ligeti and Penderecki would create in the 60s...and even sometimes suggesting the minimalism of Steve Reich. But as Langgaard grew older, he also grew less and less adventurous, so that his late works are almost completely conventional and remind one of nothing so much as Niels Gade. Antichrist is written at the tail end of his experimental period. Much of the material is blatantly late-Romantic. The vocal writing is out of Wagner and Strauss, but yet it is not quite a copy. Instrumentally, Langgaard juxtaposes lush Romantic writing with strange little interludes for unusual combinations of instruments or shimmering clouds of sound. The effect mirrors the murky symbolism of his opera perfectly. This music is both accessible and slightly odd, at the same time.The performance on the disc is taken from a live staging of the opera in Inssbruck, Austria. The text is in German, which if anything, heightens the feeling of the Wagnerian in the music. I find it a shame not to have the work available in the original Danish, as I believe language colors music rather strongly. Also, because this is a live, staged performance, there is a fair amount of audience and stage noise, though nothing so egregious as to be distracting. To the best of my ability to judge, the singers are excellent in the work, particularly the radiant Foula Dimitriadis as the Great Harlot. The booklet reproduces stills from the production. It's actually a shame that this wasn't released in DVD. The visual element in this opera must indeed be striking, and something that European directors would revel in.This is a marvelously interesting work. But if you are new to Langgaard, this is not the work to start with. A better idea of the composer can be had through his piece The Music of the Spheres, or through the marvelous 4th Symphony. Both of these works show the composer at his most original. However, for Langgaard fans, Antichrist is a must have. It is a bold and important statement by one of music's strangest sideline characters."