Strygekvartet nr. 2 (String Quartet No. 2)

Rued Langgaard photographed in February 1918, the same month in which String Quartet No. 2 was completed.

Strygekvartet nr. 2 (1918) was performed for the first time at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in 1919, where in 1918-19 Langgaard in the course of four concerts præsented a selection of his songs and chamber music. One reviewer wrote about the Second Movement of the String Quartet, Bortkørende Tog (Disappearing Train), that it "was approaching the abuse of music".

The Quartet was performed four times in Langgaard's lifetime. Only a few of his other chamber music works were performed as often as this one.

Langgaard's train music precedes that of Honneger, whose famous Pacific 231 was composed in 1923. There was, however, a predecessor in the history of Danish music, namely, H.C. Lumbye's Kjøbenhavns Jernbane- Damp-Galop (The Copenhagen Railway-Steam-Gallop) (1847).

Listen to the beginning of the Movement Bortkørende Tog.