Arne Nordheim 1931-2010

Arne Nordheim was one of the giants of contemporary music,  a composer prepared to tackle the grand themes of human existence in music of a primal force and energy that made questions of style redundant.  He enjoyed widespread respect in international circles; in his native Norway he had become  a national figurehead, a status recognized in 1982, when he was awarded residence in Grotten, the building next to  the Royal Palace in Oslo where the Norwegian state houses the country’s most important artist. Nordheim’s last years, though, were sorry ones: Alzheimer’s disease had long since robbed him of his lucidity – his death, on June 5th, was a release.

Nordheim was born in Larvik, on the coast south-west of Oslo, on June 20th, 1931, and first, from 1948 to 1952, studied organ, piano and theory at  the Oslo Conservatory; composition soon became a dominant interest and he  studied with Karl Andersen, Bjarne Brustad, Conrad Baden and, in Copenhagen  in 1955, with Vagn Holmboe. Other  study trips saw him investigate musique concrète in Paris (also 1955) and electronic music in Bilthoven in The Netherlands (1959); later (1967-1972) he was a regular visitor  to the Studio Eksperymentalne  of Polish Radio and realized a number of electronic scores there.

Nordheim first attracted national attention in 1959 with the song-cycle Aftonland for soprano and chamber ensemble, settings of poems by Pär Lagerkvist; his international reputation was launched by  the orchestral Canzona (1961), inspired by Giovanni Gabrieli, not least in its incorporation of the idea of space into the music. With Epitaffio (1963) for orchestra and tape Nordheim became one of the first Nordic composers to use electronics, blending the sounds on tape  with those of the orchestra  in a masterly use of tone-colour. The powerful oratorio Eco  for soprano, two choirs and orchestra (1968) explores the theme of human suffering and  in 1972 was awarded the Music Prize of the Nordic Council. 

Like Per Nørgård in Denmark, Nordheim was fascinated by the idea of musical time unfolding at different speeds. The electronic Lux et tenebrae and orchestral Floating (both 1970) explore the idea to considerable effect, the music somehow seeming both to evolve and to hang motionless in space at the same time – an idea he returned to in the 1979 ballet The Tempest, one of his major works. 

Later works, such as Wirklicher Wald (1983) for soprano, cello, mixed choir and orchestra, Aurora (1984) for four singers, chorus, two percussion groups and tape and the Cello Concerto Tenebrae (1982), a Rostropovich commission, find Nordheim introducing more traditional concepts of melody while retaining the emphasis on block sonorities. Over the course of the next decade the textures gradually lighten, so that the 1996 Violin Concerto can  sound almost traditional in the exchange of material between violin and orchestra – although the orchestral Magma (1988), written for the Concertgebouw Orchestra, demonstrated that he had lost none of his ability to suggest energy at its most primally powerful.

Unlike many modernists, Nordheim was not afraid of tradition, turning to Medieval Norwegian poetry in 1994 for the staged oratorio Draumkvedet, for soloists, dancers, chamber choir (acting) and orchestra,  an exploration of dream, fantasy and fear, commissioned for the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer that year. Three years later another Nordheim oratorio, Nidaros, was performed in Trondheim Cathedral in celebration of the millennium  of the city (Nidaros is its old Norwegian name). One idea  that did not reach fruition  was his proposal for the opening event of the Lillehammer Olympics: a global concert,  with the participants on five continents linked by satellite  – the organizers preferred something that was less of  a logistical challenge.

The record companies, Norwegian and international (Aurora, BIS, Rune Grammofon, Simax, Victoria), did a reasonable job of keeping up with Nordheim’s output, with the result that there is a better representation of his music in  the catalogues than that of most other contemporary composers. In 2002 the Norwegian Composers’ Union made the  task of getting to know his  music much easier with the release of a magnificent seven-CD set ‘Listen – The Art of Arne Nordheim’ (ACD5070).

Martin Anderson

Philip Langridge 1939-2010

Philip Langridge, who died on March 5th, was widely regarded as one of the leading tenors  of his generation. Born in Hawkhurst, Kent on December 16th, 1939 into a non-musical family, he was nevertheless encouraged at home and at school as a singer and violinist, in which latter capacity he studied at London’s Royal College of Music from 1958, beginning his career as a rank-and-file orchestral violinist. During his time at the RCM he also took singing lessons (as a baritone) from Bruce Boyce before switching register and making his professional singing début at Glyndebourne as a footman in Richard Strauss’s Capriccio in 1964.

Langridge’s discography is  vast and varied, ranging from  the early Classical period to contemporary works. His distinctive and highly versatile lyric voice, impeccable musicianship and command of a wide variety of styles enabled him to make his own a hugely diverse range of repertoire  from Monteverdi, Purcell,  Bach, Handel, Rameau and Mozart to Berlioz, Berg, Holst, Mussorgsky, Ravel, Janácek, Schoenberg, Wagner and Stravinsky, including along the way Britten, Tippett, Goehr, Adès, Birtwistle, Lutyens and Henze, and many others in between. He was due to create the title-role in a new opera  by Mark-Anthony Turnage at Covent Garden in 2011. His innate dramatic gifts were in evidence in every part he played and sang. 

A career that spanned 50 years, initially based in the  UK, took him the length and breadth of the country. He  was quickly established as a regular at the BBC Proms, the Edinburgh Festival (which he attended no fewer than 15  times, beginning in 1968) and Glyndebourne. A regular visitor to the Metropolitan Opera, New York, he was later to be seen  in such roles as Mozart’s Tito  in Munich (he recorded it for Teldec in Zurich in the early 1990s, with Lucia Popp as Vitellia and Ann Murray, his second wife, as Sesto, conducted by Harnoncourt); Idomeneo at Aix-en-Provence, Angers, Berne, Berlin, La Scala, Milan and Salzburg; Aron in the Met’s 1999 production, with John Tomlinson, of Schoenberg’s  Moses und Aron (he was also Aron to Franz Mazura’s Moses in Solti’s 1984 Chicago recording on Decca); and Stravinsky’s Tom Rakewell in 1979 at the Teatro Lirico, Milan and in Boston in 1995. 

David Gutman wrote of his assumption of the title-role in Levine’s 1994 DG recording  of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex,  ‘This is an Oedipus to outshine modern rivals, uncommonly accurate and ideally expressive … when at length Oedipus recognizes the truth, Langridge  is unassailable: the key words “Lux facta est!” are quite sublimely sung.’

He sang all the principal tenor roles in Britten’s operas and was compared favourably to Peter Pears at the Aldeburgh revival of Peter Grimes in 1973. An empathy for and ability to get totally inside complex, tortured characters were his forte. He considered Grimes to be one of his favourite roles and said in 2000, when he sang it at the Los Angeles Opera, ‘I really sympathise with this character, who wants so much to be accepted and never comes to understand that the only real  way we can ever be accepted into society is first to accept ourselves for who we are.’ Of his tense, sinewy, sensitive portrayal of Grimes in Chandos’s 1996 Richard Hickox recording (for which he won a Grammy Award), Alan Blyth wrote, ‘His performances of the role in the opera house had led one to hope that he would record it and expectations are fulfilled by his astonishingly vivid singing here … [he] finds not only the right colour but also the appropriate verbal emphases. Like everything he does, the flavour of his singing is tangy, individual.’ Indeed, he was regarded as the most important of the ‘second-generation’ Britten tenors. Langridge first sang the role of Aschenbach in Death in Venice at Covent Garden in 1992 and, astonishingly, some 12 years later, on Chandos’s 2004 recording, he sounded as if time had barely touched his vocal cords. Hugh Canning described it as ‘a truly historic performance of a great role, faultlessly sung and characterized with profound understanding and both musical and poetic insight’. His contribution to Chandos’s  War Requiem was described as ‘compelling, with his marvellous way of lighting words, as it were, from within and that especially anguished tone of  his’ (AB again). All the Britten Chandos recordings were conducted by Hickox, to  whom he was very close. 

Other Britten portrayals include his Earl of Essex in Argo’s 1993 Gloriana, with Josephine Barstow (Queen Elizabeth) and Della Jones  (Lady Essex), conducted by Charles Mackerras; his Prologue and Quint in The Turn of the Screw with Felicity Lott, conducted by Steuart Bedford for Collins Classics in 1994 (he was the Prologue only in Colin Davis’s 1982 Philips recording, made as the soundtrack for the riveting film made by Petr Weigl); and his Madwoman in Curlew River opposite Thomas Allen’s Ferryman, conducted  by Neville Marriner for Philips in 1998. 

He excelled in Lieder (Winterreise and Die Schöne Müllerin were favourites) and gave recitals and made recordings with notable pianists who included András Schiff, Maurizio Pollini, Peter Donohoe and David Owen Norris. Lieder singing of the highest quality marked his contributions to  the Hyperion Schubert edition, accompanied by Graham Johnson. Recitals and recordings of twentieth-century vocal works were numerous, and he will perhaps be best remembered for his dedication to British music. Of his 1978 performances in Finzi’s Dies natalis and For St Cecilia (reissued on a two-disc Decca British Music Collection  in 2001), Piers Burton-Page admired Langridge’s lyrical tenor and clear enunciation. John Warrack wrote of Holst’s Savitri, released on Hyperion in 1984, ‘Philip Langridge is a superb Satyavan: he seems to be singing better and better these days, with stronger timbre and greater range of colour in a voice that was always fine and true. As always, it is an immensely intelligent performance.’ JW  also relates an anecdote about this very gifted and likeable man. ‘He was generous, too. Back in 1979, I was directing the Leeds Festival and was let down at the last minute by a chorus tenor who was due to sing the solo at the end of Liszt’s Faust Symphony. Philip, having already sung in another work, tapped me on  the shoulder and said, “I’ll sing it for you if you like – only don’t tell my agent.” And he did, beautifully.’ Chandos’s 2002 recording of Dyson’s Quo Vadis was hailed as a dazzling addition to the repertoire by Ivan Moody, not least because of a superb quartet of soloists, ‘of whom  it must be said that Philip Langridge … [is] absolutely outstanding’.

He assumed three roles (the Prince, Manservant and Marquis) in a new production of Berg’s Lulu at Covent Garden in June 2009, which was filmed by Opus Arte (it’s reviewed on page 80). Of his last stage performances  at the New York Met (as the Witch in an irrepressibly energetic and hilarious drag impersonation) in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel in December 2009 and January 2010, he was quoted as saying, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun in my whole career’; when the run finished he was diagnosed with bowel cancer. 

Towards the end of his long career he gave masterclasses,  of which he said ‘I don’t talk about technique, I talk about communication’, appearing  in this capacity at numerous venues, including Salzburg, Paris, Munich, New York, Aix-en-Provence, the RCM, the RAM and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. He was also President of Opera South  in 2005-10. In 1994 he was appointed CBE for his services  to music. Other awards included the Olivier Award for his portrayal of Zivny in Janácek’s Osud in 1984 (he reprised the role in English for Charles Mackerras’s EMI recording in 1990 with Welsh National Opera) and the Charles Groves Prize 2001 for ‘outstanding contribution to British Music’. 

He was loved and respected by audiences and colleagues alike. One of his favourite offstage activities was collecting watercolours. He was regarded as a true English gentleman, urbane, civilized and a consummate professional. With his first wife Margaret Davidson he had three children, Anita and Jennifer, who became musicians, and the opera director Stephen Langridge (in two of whose productions – Birtwistle’s The Minotaur and Offenbach’s Bluebeard – he sang in 2008). He married the Irish mezzo-soprano Ann Murray in 1981, with whom he had a son Jonathan.

Máire Taylor