When Mysticism Loses Its Magic

One must be cautious when people say, »now it gets really deep«. Musical, intellectual, or spiritual depth must be experienced – not proclaimed. At this year’s Langgaard Festival in Ribe, there was much talk of depth, big concepts, and spiritual directions, but without us ever really reaching the depths of depth.

Over four days in September, Ribe’s old town is transformed each year into a large festival site, where historic buildings, cafés and restaurants, the local high school, cemetery, and churches all provide venues for either concerts, lectures, or lounges where the day’s music is discussed. The festival has developed tremendously in recent years and, since its founding in 2010, has always had either a composer or an overarching theme to be set against Rued Langgaard’s multifaceted and wondrous music.

Michael Schönwandt was in high spirits as he led the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra Friday evening in Langgaard’s old cathedral

Under the umbrella of »Danish mysticism« we got a bit of everything this year – masterpieces as well as duds and charlatan artists who lost themselves in mystical or gloomy sounds that went no deeper than vague impressions. The festival sought to go »close to the first decades of the 20th century, when there was a glowing interest in Denmark in alternative religious, occult, and theosophical movements.« Among the positive discoveries were the overlooked composer Tekla Griebel Wandall (1866-1940) and Ludolf Nielsen’s (1876-1939) music.

Schönwandt lifted the cathedral

Michael Schönwandt was in high spirits as he led the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra Friday evening in Langgaard’s old cathedral. The orchestra is playing better than ever, which gives conductors the chance to leave their mark – and Schönwandt did so in Langgaard and Ludolf Nielsen. Messiaen’s five-minute O sacrum convivium opened the concert. Perhaps a pity that it wasn’t one of the choir’s own conductors who led it. The choir – the Church of Our Saviour Choir (Esbjerg) and the Aarhus Academic Choir – was well-prepared and mastered the difficult passages, but Schönwandt conducted a bit mechanically. The concert moved seamlessly into Langgaard’s The Star in the East from 1927. Here Schönwandt drew out the special dynamic layers, and the orchestra’s beautiful, balanced sound impressed. At the end, the tubular bells rang out to the words »He comes!« – a tribute to the theosophical order that believed in Christ’s imminent return.

The symphony sounded powerful but not brutal

Ludolf Nielsen – and the festival’s problem

After the intermission, the mysticism theme continued with Ludolf Nielsen’s Skovvandring, but first we got Schönwandt’s personal interpretation of Langgaard’s Sixth Symphony. He chose a slower tempo in the famous minor-key fugue than, for instance, the Vienna Philharmonic, which suited the first half of the symphony well – we heard a more calm and gentle Langgaard. The crescendo before the dramatic timpani passage was particularly well executed. The symphony sounded powerful but not brutal – respect to the conductor for this reading.

In Ludolf Nielsen’s half-hour Woodland Walk (1914-22), the festival’s second problem emerged: the theme composer’s music resembled Langgaard – when he is boring. The work had never before been performed publicly and was only half-heartedly recorded in 1999, and during the intermission Schönwandt called it a »masterpiece« on DR P2. That was not the case, for the many atmospheric motifs lacked depth and complexity. Symphonic nature paintings from the time abound, and only the final movement – »Towards Daybreak« – stood out. Its structural buildup created intensity toward a climax where the light breaks forth in line with the creeds of symbolism. Had the whole work been at this level, it would long ago have entered the concert repertoire. Ludolf Nielsen’s music recalled Langgaard’s late Romantic periods, which likewise did not always run deep.

By contrast, the evening’s final work confirmed why so many flock to Ribe. Langgaard’s somewhat overlooked Fra dybet contains precisely the raw and original elements that characterize him at his best. Eight minutes of thunderous music where the united choirs from Esbjerg and Aarhus joined again with citations from the Catholic Requiem Mass.

He gave a sharp account of how esoteric currents such as spiritualism and theosophy flourished around 1900 and influenced Danish musical life

Theosophy’s influence

Fra dybet consisted of a striking number of pure seventh chords, and I wondered at the technique – but the next morning, at the lecture »The Mystical Microcosm of Music« by music scholar Thomas Husted Kirkegaard, I got a possible explanation. He gave a sharp account of how esoteric currents such as spiritualism and theosophy flourished around 1900 and influenced Danish musical life. Rued Langgaard’s father, Siegfried Langgaard, was an advocate of this orientation, and more than 1000 handwritten pages (!) survive from his hand under the heading »On the Harmony of the Arts in the World Symphony«. Rued himself was strongly influenced, and guest composer Tekla Griebel Wandall was also a devoted defender of theosophy as a science of spirit. In her large dissertation The Microcosm of Tones (1939), which she attempted to submit as a doctoral thesis, she writes: »We see and hear things which reflect the universe, even if the format is small. … It is the white Light with its three inherent Colours: Red, Yellow, Blue, and it is the Tone, with its three inherent Notes: the World Triad! It is a Triangle and a Triad.«

She draws directly on the theosophical teaching of Madame Blavatsky, which combines occultism, Hinduism, and Eastern philosophy – and regards its doctrine as science rather than religion. Griebel is fascinated by the mixolydian scale, which precisely contains the lowered seventh, and deduces from this that the seventh chord is a fundamental harmony. Langgaard too was fascinated by seventh chords and used them often outside conventional function. The philosophy rests on the macrocosmic idea that the relations of the planets correspond to the overtone series – where the seventh is the first dissonance beyond the triad.

Here we brushed against some depth, and the next day it could be heard in practice in Griebel Wandall’s little piano piece Vinter, Afskedsstrofe on Langgaard’s own grand piano at one of three mini piano salons. Here the dissonances reached back to Tekla’s affect theory of intervals and tonal characters.

Piano salons with rare intensity

Christian Westergaard is a soulful pianist and was an ideal choice for three mini-concerts on Langgaard’s newly restored grand piano. The Bechstein technicians had preserved its dark and muffled timbre, which suited Westergaard’s touch and the music of both Langgaard and Tekla excellently. In the intimate setting, some of the festival’s finest moments arose, especially in Langgaard’s Angelus Variations, where Westergaard wove in both Tekla Griebel and Ludolf Nielsen. Sometimes depth arises where you least expect it – and where less is said about it.

Under the name »The Horror Hour« we were presented Saturday evening with songs from all three theme composers in St. Catharinae’s Church. Solo piano and lieder were not ideal for the space, but David Danholt did his best with Ludolf Nielsen’s songs, which, however, were not artistically strong. Mezzo-soprano Sophie Haagen, on the other hand, elevated eight Langgaard songs with her dark tone. Especially »Et figentræ« and »Morgendämmerung« crept under the skin through her personal interpretation with Christian Westergaard at the piano.

The soprano is so devoted to Griebel Wandall that she has a tattoo of her on her back

Tekla Griebel Wandall in the spotlight

Reincarnation is a key part of theosophical teaching, and my companion declared that he now also believed in it after experiencing soprano Laura Helene Hansen. She resembles Tekla Griebel Wandall so much that reincarnation seems obvious – the soprano is so devoted to Griebel Wandall that she has a tattoo of her on her back. Saturday evening she gave her all in Wandall’s Lenore and scenes from the opera Kong Hroars Skjalde – a work the composer unsuccessfully tried to have staged at the Royal Danish Theatre. Lenore is a recitation piece about a woman waiting for her beloved to return from war.

He does not come, and she rejects both Christian faith and life itself – and then things go »completely wrong«, as Hansen herself put it the night before at Langgaard Lounge. Even though the words were hard to catch in the large space, one sensed a strong work with intelligent piano accompaniment (Berit Johansen at the keys), which created atmosphere beneath the violent words that ended in theatrical blood and horror on stage.

Saturday had already been long with seven or eight concerts and lectures, yet another concert was scheduled in the Cathedral at 10:30 p.m. under the title »Antichrist Returns«. A pity for the 12 young musicians from Ödets Ögon, who fought for 40 minutes for the audience’s attention close to midnight. They had prepared thoroughly, but the work was not strong, and electronics idling diluted the acoustic instruments. Another time it should be tightened in form and duration – and given a better slot than a bedtime concert for weary listeners.

Artistically it was as thin as the cocktail Langgaard Malurt Vermouth, offered by the local vineyard

Thus to the festival’s weaknesses: It wanted too much and became too messy. At the walking concert in Ribe Art Museum under the heading »Sacre versus Antichrist«, Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring was entangled without clear justification. Out of context, Ursula Andkjær Olsen read her own text in front of Henrik Schouboe’s painting Forår, and in the courtyard, The Ego’s Fantasies of Grandeur unfolded with Jakob Kullberg’s »mystical« tones to Jacob Kirkegaard’s sounds recorded under the Gallows Hill.

It made little sense and had no artistic value. Fascinating, though, to see dancers Astrid and Katrine Grarup Elbo up close, but their very free interpretation of Stravinsky’s ballet came nowhere near the program booklet’s words: »Amid a global climate crisis, the work asks whether sacrifice is once again necessary to secure the survival of the species.» And: »To explore the tension that precedes the ritual sacrifice.« Most artistically interesting was perhaps that a bilingual family wearing a headscarf had strayed into the museum’s garden and, with wide eyes and mobile phone in hand, watched the strange spectacle as all of us white, stereotypical festival guests were placed in a circle on the grass around the dancers and asked »to hum to the sound.« Here a cultural clash and an intriguing tension arose – but entirely unintended.

Most meaningless was the handing out of yarn pompoms, which we were to »sacrifice« at each station. Artistically it was as thin as the cocktail Langgaard Malurt Vermouth, offered by the local vineyard at the end. Each year brings new Langgaard merchandise: porter beer, last year a pastry, this year a cocktail with a hint of wormwood. There wasn’t much Langgaard in that drink.

Wasn’t the theme of Danish mysticism, theosophy, and the outstanding Tekla Griebel enough?

Too much filler, too little Langgaard magic

Here the festival drifted far away from Langgaard substance and artistic depth, which normally characterizes the days in Ribe. That we also had to hear Jonas Eika read from his book Åben himmel no fewer than four times in the cemetery, accompanied by barely audible sounds from Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard, was outright unnecessary and disruptive. His book deals with the Christian women’s movement, the Beguines, and the connection was that Langgaard wrote the piano work Le Béguinage. But wasn’t the theme of Danish mysticism, theosophy, and the outstanding Tekla Griebel enough? Yes, it certainly would have been. 

The festival contained both strong musical moments and a well-chosen theme, but the balance tipped along the way: when mysticism turned into mystical mood rather than substance. And when trick-art filled too much.

Rued Langgaard Festival, Ribe, September 4–7, 2025

English translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek