³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

Fate dealt a cruel hand to Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Rued Langgaard, two composers born in the wrong place at the wrong time. Korngold longed to write the sort of yearning, haunting melodic music that was out of fashion in early twentieth-century Vienna, but when the Nazis came to power he faced more serious challenges. Exiled in Hollywood, Korngold scored success writing movie themes, plundering the most expressive and beautiful of them in 1945 for a captivating Violin Concerto.

Rued Langgaard was only 17 in 1911 when he finished his Symphony No. 1, a lush, romantic work in the tradition of Strauss and Bruckner that was soon taken up by the Berlin Philharmonic. Marginalized by his native Denmark, Langgaard’s highly personal, exceptionally crafted and utterly compelling music is at last getting the recognition it deserves.