The Four Phases


Afgrundsmusik (Music of the Abyss)


Afgrundsmusik (1921-24) is one of Langgaard's most ambitious works for the piano. "Abyss" means "the strongest, i.e., the so-called evil", wrote Langgaard in his preface to the composition. In an earlier version the composition was adorned with mottoes about the end of the world from the Apocalypse of St. John. All the major works Langgaard composed up to and immediately after the opera, Antikrist (Antichrist), were related to apocalyptic ideas.

Listen to a short excerpt from the beginning of the 2nd Movement, which gives an impression of the piano style of Afgrundsmusik. If we stretch things a bit, it could almost be an excerpt from a piano work by Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992).

At the end of the sample, the dissonance between a deep G in the bass and an A flat in the descant is regularly repeated, and at several points in the composition the equally sharp dissonance of the tritone interval is also to be heard - which in the Middle Ages was called "the Devil in the music".

This music sample is reproduced by permission of the Society for the Publication of Danish Music, which published the work in 1993.


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