Rued Langgaard

Rued Immanuel Langgaard was born on July 28, 1893, in Copenhagen, the son of pianist and composer Siegfried Langgaard. An organ prodigy who began improvising complex pieces at age eleven, his colossal Symphony No. 1 Klippepastoraler was premiered by the Berlin Philharmonic in 1913.

Marginalized by the Copenhagen musical establishment dominated by Carl Nielsen, Langgaard retreated to become organist of Ribe Cathedral. His revolutionary 1916–1918 masterpiece Sfærernes Musik (Music of the Spheres), calling for off-stage brass, wordless soprano, and piano strings played directly with fingers, stunned György Ligeti in the 1960s, who acknowledged that Langgaard had invented cluster music fifty years earlier.