The ideas behind the music


In the service of a higher cause


Everything points to the fact that Rued Langgaard throughout the whole of his life - with the possible exception of a period around 1920 - regarded the ideas connected with "the mission of music" as the fundamental set of values on which his creative activity was based.

In the last note we possess from the composer's hand (reproduced above), written in hospital a month before he died, he listed some works which he regarded as particularly important. These included Symphony No. 11 Ixion (1944-45) and Symphomy No. 16 Syndflod af Sol (Sun Deluge) (1950/51). At the end he added, somewhat pathetically: "These works of music mark the end of the mission of music in the world ".


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