Music of the Abyss
Music of the Abyss, Esbjerg Ensemble’s album featuring chamber music by Rued Langgaard, has just been announced as a nominee for Danish Album of Year at the P2 Prisen 2022.
The album includes my version for 10 instruments of Langgaard’s piano piece Music of the Abyss. It is nominated together with albums by the Danish String Quartet and Christian Westergaard.
P2 Prisen is Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s annual award which goes to albums and/or people based the Danish music scene, who have done an extraordinary effort for classical music.
My version for 10 musicians of Rued Langgaard’s Afgrundsmusik (BVN 169) was premiered by the Esbjerg Ensemble at the Langgaard Festival in Sct. Catharinæ Kirke, Ribe, in 2017 and later recorded for Dacapo Records.
The jury’s motivation:
“Signe Asmussen and an Esbjerg Ensemble in animated intense interaction, which makes Langgaard’s chamber music vibrate like never before.
A showcase in Langgaard’s music’s charitable diversity, and as a bonus the hair-raising piano work Music of the Abyss in Allan Gravgaard Madsen’s colorful instrumentation for Esbjerg Ensemble.”
Esben Tange, liner notes, Langgaard: Music of the Abyss:
“Allan Gravgaard Madsen’s transcription for the Esbjerg Ensemble’s members adds new dimensions to this inner tension. […] The restless manic repetitions in the second movement have a more all-encompassing character because of the strengthened instrumental setting.”