The Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1925, is the oldest radio symphony orchestra in the world. Two conductors in particular have largely been responsible for building up the orchestra from the start: the legendary Fritz Busch, and the Russian Nicolai Malko, who is still honoured by the orchestra every third year at the International Malko Competition for Young Conductors. Many of this century’s great conductors have conducted the orchestra, among them Paul Kletzki, Eugene Ormandy, Leopold Stokowski, Bruno Walter, Rafael Kubelík, Sergiu Celibidache, Vaclav Neumann, Daniel Barenboim, Paavo Berglund, Sixten Ehrling and Herbert Blomstedr. Other contemporary conductors of the orchestra include international top figures like Giuseppe Sinopoji, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yuri Temirkanov, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Evgeny Svetlanov as well as Kurt Sanderling. In 1995 the German conductor Ulf Schirmer took over as principal conductor of the orchestra. Leif Segerstam has been associated as honorary conductor, with Dmitri Kitaenko and Michael Schønwandt as principal guest conductors. Touring forms a major part of the orchestra’s activities and includes regular visits to the United States and several European countries. Throughout the years countless recordings of the orchestra have been issued, including complete cycles of symphonies by Sibelius and Mahler on the Chandos label as well as numerous Danish works on the label Dacapo. The orchestra collaborated with Decca and Ulf Schirmer on works by Carl Nielsen.

The Sparekassen Bikuben A/S (savings bank) sponsors the DNRSO and Choir.

Photo courtesy of Tine Juel

Gennady Rozhdestvensky’s parents were both musicians of the highest calibre: his father was the conductor Nikolai Anosov, a major musician of the Soviet era, a fine pianist, and a composer who spoke ten languages; and his mother was the soprano Natalya Rozhdestvenskaya, a star of the Bolshoi Opera, whose name he adopted. He studied first at the Gnessin Institute of Music, and then at the Moscow Conservatory; here he was a piano pupil of Lev Oborin, and a conducting pupil of his own father. When Rozhdestvensky was twenty he made his public debut at the Bolshoi Theatre conducting Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, having already achieved distinction as the conductor of prizewinning student orchestras at international music competitions in Bucharest and Berlin. He served as a conductor at the Bolshoi Theatre between 1951 and 1961, assisting the distinguished conductor of the ballet company, Yuri Fayer; deputising for an ailing Samuel Samosud in an early performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 in 1955; first visiting Great Britain with the Bolshoi’s ballet company in 1956; and, together with Alexander Melik-Pashayev, leading the first performances at the Bolshoi of Prokofiev’s opera War and Peace in 1959. During the 1960s he held two major posts in Russian musical life: between 1961 and 1974 he was chief conductor of the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, also known as the All-Union Radio and Television Orchestra, and from 1964 to 1970 he was chief conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre. Major musical landmarks of this period included the first Russian performances of Benjamin Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Bolshoi in 1965, and an electrifying account of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1970.

After helping to found the Moscow Chamber Opera in 1972 and serving as the company’s first music director, Rozhdestvensky conducted abroad a great deal. He succeeded Antal Dorati as chief conductor of the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in 1974, remaining with this orchestra until 1977, after which he became chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1978 to 1981. He left London to become chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra between 1981 and 1983; while in Vienna he maintained an important Russian tradition by teaching conducting at the Vienna Academy of Music, having already been professor of conducting at the Moscow Conservatory. He was later to continue to teach, at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena from 1987. Rozhdestvensky returned to a permanent appointment in Russia in 1982 when the Ministry of Culture formed a symphony orchestra, named after itself, for him to lead. With this orchestra he recorded a large discography, including the complete symphonies of Shostakovich, Glazunov, Bruckner, Schnittke and Honegger. Between 1991 and 1995 Rozhdestvensky returned to the helm of the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra as its chief conductor; and he was also to return to the Bolshoi Theatre for its 2000–2001 season as artistic director for both the ballet and opera companies, the first such appointment in the theatre’s history. His period there culminated with the world première of the original version of Prokofiev’s opera The Gambler. In 1969 Rozhdestvensky married the brilliant pianist Viktoria Postnikova, who first shot to fame at the Leeds International Piano Competition; their son is the internationally acclaimed violinist Alexander, or Sasha, Rozhdestvensky.

As an interpreter Rozhdestvensky combines a high degree of spontaneity with a grand sense of gesture and an infallible placing of climaxes, resulting in highly satisfying and individual performances. He is a master of baton technique, often using a long stick, which, when combined with his expansive gestures, has a mesmeric as well as a commanding effect upon both orchestras and audiences. His vast musical appetite and his unfailing enthusiasm for twentieth-century Russian composers are most clearly displayed in his discography, which is enormous and chronicles his career in considerable detail. In addition to the numerous recordings which he made for the Soviet state record company, Melodya, there are numerous live recordings from the Soviet period in his career, many of which well illustrate his extraordinary command of the orchestra. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union Rozhdestvensky has recorded extensively for many different labels, most notably Chandos. Rozhdestvensky is a musician of the highest calibre and a true master of his art, whose recordings of contemporary Russian music are both authoritative and empathetic.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — David Patmore (A–Z of Conductors, Naxos 8.558087–90).

The Danish composer and organist Rued Langgaard was born in Copenhagen. His father, a pianist and composer, had been a pupil of Liszt and his mother was also a pianist. He made his debut as an organist at the age of 11. Largely self-taught as a composer, he had early success in Berlin, when performances of his works were given by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, while Danish critics remained sceptical. He was successful in Germany and at home his works were broadcast; otherwise he had little support, although eventually, in 1940, he was able to secure a position as organist at Ribe Cathedral in Southern Jutland.

Opera

Langgaard’s only stage work, the ‘opera mystery’ Antikrist, was completed in early 1923, using the composer’s own libretto. Based on the dramatic poem of the same name by P.E. Benzon and reflecting the influence of R.H. Benson’s The Lord of the World, the opera shows Apollyon, who sells his soul to the Devil, leading the world to destruction and therefore to the Second Coming of Christ. Musically eclectic, it is an example of late Romanticism in its language.

Vocal Music

Langgaard’s songs were generally written early in his career and continue the German Lieder tradition. Sinfonia interna, abandoned by the composer, brings together five movements that appeared as separate works for soloists, chorus and full orchestra. He left a number of hymns, together with his Rose Garden Songs, written for unaccompanied voices.

Orchestral Music

Langgaard left 16 symphonies. Of these one of the most frequently heard is Symphony No. 4 ‘Leaf Fall’, which has been described as an ‘autumn diary’. Symphony No. 5 exists in four versions but draws again on nature and legend. The expressionist Symphony No. 6 ‘Heaven-Rending’, a theme-and-variations that was ill-received at its first performance, was followed by a form of Romanticism in Symphony No. 7, while Symphony No. 8 is a religiously motivated tribute to Frederiksstaden, the Amalienborg Palace and the Marble Church where Langgaard had played as a boy.