SATURDAY
September 6, 2025
Tickets can be purchased via the link under the concert/event description.
Subject to change without notice
10:00 a.m.
The Mystical Microcosm of Music
Langgaard Hall
In the decades around 1900, esoteric movements like spiritualism and theosophy flourished across Europe and left their mark on all the arts - but how did they influence music in Denmark?
PhD and musicologist Thomas Husted Kirkegaard (Aarhus University) delves into the occult musical philosophies of Siegfried Langgaard, Rued Langgaard and Tekla Griebel Wandall. By examining their secret symbols and mystical worldviews, the presentation opens a window to an almost forgotten dimension of Danish music history. What did it mean for these composers to create music in contact with the cosmos - and can we still hear the echoes of it today?
Lecture by PhD and musicologist Thomas Husted Kirkegaard
11:00 a.m.
Winner of the Rued Langgaard Competition 2025 - Denisa Irina Pirvulescu
Sct. Catharinæ Church
Romanian Denisa Irina Pirvulescu became the first solo pianist to win the Rued Langgaard Competition. With great imagination and courage, she thrilled the audience and showed how many possible depths Rued Langgaard's music holds.
Solo piano music by Rued Langgaard.
- Denisa Irina Pirvulescu, piano
12:15 p.m.
Langgaard's piano renovated
Café Rued
Throughout his life, Rued Langgaard owned a Bechstein grand piano from the 1890s. It has now undergone a historically conscious renovation at the Bechstein factory in Germany, restoring the instrument to a condition reminiscent of what Rued Langgaard experienced in his time.
Piano music by Tekla Griebel Wandall, Ludolf Nielsen and Rued Langgaard.
- Christian Westergaard, piano.
Free access
13.45 - 14.15
Langgaards Bench
Ribe Old Cemetery. By the bell tower and butterfly gate
From his home in Gravsgade, Rued Langgaard often walked to the cemetery, where he found peace and inspiration to compose on a bench. Now we follow in the footsteps of Rued Langgaard. Sit on a bench or in the grass and listen to the music in the distance, the sounds of nature and the words of Open Sky.
Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard: Rued Langgaard's bench II B
Reverberations of Langs Kirkegaarden, Wild Ducks and Echo from Rued Langgaard's quartet Ribe, tidlig Morgen BVN 386 (1949). Utilization.
Jonas Eika reads from Open Heaven, which is a fantasy about the Christian women's movement, the Beguines.
Cast:
- Dybfølt: Kirstine Elise Pedersen, cello and Mathæus Bech, bass.
- Ensemble with students from Ribe Katedralskole
- Soundbox with recording of Rued Langgaard's bench from Rued Langgaard's grave at Holmens Cemetery in Copenhagen and recordings from Sct. Catharinæ Klostergård.
Duration: 30 min.
Free access
15:00
Prize concert with cathedral organist Birgitte Ebert
Ribe Cathedral
The Frobenius Foundation's Grand Prize 2025 of DKK 250,000 goes to Birgitte Ebert, cathedral organist at Ribe Cathedral - for a long and dedicated career as an organist and for: "as co-founder of the Rued Langgaard Society 2007 - and from 2010 the driving force behind the Rued Langgaard Festival, making an outstanding effort to ensure that the festival has developed into one of the most significant music festivals in Denmark."
Birgitte Ebert, organ
Speech by Henrik Paludan, Chairman of the Frobenius Foundation and Elof Westergaard, Bishop of Ribe Diocese.
Free access
At 16.00
Antichrist - the movie
Langgaard Hall
Film: Rued Langgaard's Doomsday production in a production from Deutsche Oper, Berlin
With the production of Rued Langgaard's Antichrist at Deutsche Oper in Berlin in 2022, Langgaard's 100-year-old apocalypse opera finally has a major international breakthrough. The young German director Ersan Mondtag stages Antichrist as a modern urban decay story, and in a striking visual style.
Film introduction by Bendt Viinholt Nielsen.
Rued Langgaard: Antichrist. DVD 2024 (102')
16:00
Langgaard Afternoon - Sacred versus Antichrist
Ribe Art Museum
Poetic walking concert in the museum garden by Ribe Å, on Sct. Nicolaj Gade and in Ribe Art Museum.
The ritual begins
Rituals against the apocalypse - in the museum garden
Free performative interpretation of Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps. Based on the first part of the two-part original work, it explores the tension that anticipates the ritual sacrifice, rather than the dance of death itself. In the midst of a global climate crisis, the work asks whether deprivation and human sacrifice are once again necessary to ensure the survival of the species?
- Astrid Grarup Elbo, solo dancer
- Katrine Grarup Elbo, violinist and composer
The ego's fantasies of grandeur - in the square in front of the museum.
Personal interpretation of Rued Langgaard's Antichrist based on sound recordings from Galgebakken in Ribe, where executions were carried out until the mid-18th century.
- Jakob Kullberg, cello
- Jacob Kirkegaard, sound art
Henrik Schouboe: Spring (1906) - in the museum
In Danish painter Henrik Schouboe's breakthrough painting Spring, a young girl walks in organic harmony with nature. Man and landscape form a synthesis. An example of a bright Danish mysticism.
Based on the painting Spring, Ursula Andkjær Olsen recites a new poetic text.
- Recitation Ursula Andkjær Olsen, author
End of the ritual in the museum garden by Ribe Å
Langgaard Malurt aperitif from Vester Vedsted Vingaard
Cast:
- Astrid Grarup Elbo, solo dancer
- Katrine Grarup Elbo, violinist and composer
- Jakob Kullberg, cello
- Jacob Kirkegaard, sound art
- Ursula Andkjær Olsen, author
8:00 p.m.
Lenore - Horror Hour
Sct. Catharinæ Church
Tekla Gribel Wandall's Lenore is gothic horror with recitation, ghost choirs and a romantic tale where death lurks.
Also hear an excerpt from Wandall's main work, the opera King Hroar's Scald, which pits Ásatrú against Christianity and discusses the issue of gender.
The first part of the concert presents some of Ludolf Nielsen and Rued Langgaard's most evocative songs. As the last light of day disappears, another world is revealed in the meeting between mythology, nature and night.
Ludolf Nielsen: Midsummer scent and other songs op. 4 (1901) Vocal and piano (12')
- Midsummer scent (Valdemar Rørdam)
- The fjord is white in the dusky night (Valdemar Rørdam)
- Night rode out across the meadow (Jenny Blicher-Clausen)
- Skiing (Valdemar Rørdam)
- Ecstasy (A. Sylvest)
Ludolf Nielsen: Two Songs op. 12 (1905-06) Vocal, violin and organ (or piano) (7')
- Media Vita (Johannes Jørgensen)
- Prayer (J.O Wallin)
Ludolf Nielsen: Sleeping sweetly in holy peace (Schack von Staffeldt) op. 33 (1912). Vocal, violin and organ (or piano).
Rued Langgaard: November (Betty Tofte) BVN 209 (1930) Voice and piano
Rued Langgaard: Fünf Lieder BVN 77 (1914) (11') Voice and piano
- There is a mountain in fire (Joseph von Eichendorff)
- Dawn (Joseph von Eichendorff)
- What's the matter with me (Joseph von Eichendorff)
- I know a big garden (Joseph von Eichendorff)
- A spruce tree (Heinrich Heine)
Rued Langgaard: Fire Sange BVN 100 (1915) (excerpt) Voice and piano.
- Stormy night (Vilhelm Krag)
- We didn't think about anything at all (Vilhelm Krag)
Cast:
- David Danholt, tenor (Ludolf Nielsen songs)
- Sophie Haagen, mezzo-soprano (Rued Langgaard songs)
- Christian Westergaard, piano
- Tim Crawford, violin
- Philip Smith Madsen, organ
Pause
Rued Langgaard: Sagnet om Kirke og Orgel (Holger Drachmann) BVN 159 (1918) Declamation and piano (4') First public performance.
Tekla Griebel Wandall: Scene from the opera King Hroars Skjalde based on Øhlenslægers Hroars Saga (soprano, alto and tenor) (20')
Tekla Griebel Wandall: Lenore (Gottfried August Bürger). Recitation, piano, bells etc. (20') Concludes with ghost choir with all singers.
Cast:
- Laura Helene Hansen, soprano. Recitation in Lenore
- David Danholt, tenor. Recitation in Langgaard and voice in Ghost Choir
- Sophie Haagen, mezzo-soprano. Voice in ghost choir
- Berit Johansen Tange, piano
- Christian Westergaard, bell etc.
Concept and direction: Laura Helene Hansen and Esben Tange
Visual staging: Lene Juhl
22:30
The Antichrist walks again
Ribe Cathedral
In Ödets Ögon's electroacoustic and site-specific ritual work Resa I Ljus, the church space is filled with speakers and musicians placed on axes that attempt the impossible: music that drives itself. The tamed music struggles to disobey, and the violent free music struggles to shape itself.
Ödets Ögon: Journey in Light (40') Concert for organ, electronics, flute, guitar, wind quartet, voices and youth polygon. World premiere
Cast:
- Mads Gravers Nielsen, organ
- Petter Hängsel, trombone
- Michaela Turcerova, saxophone
- Anne Andersson, trumpet
- Mads Egetoft, saxophone
- Oliver Laumann, vocals
- Simone Skronski, vocals
- Andreas Bunin Trap-Jensen, flute
- Hampus Wahlgren, guitar and vocals
- JB Hviid, electronics and more
- Sophie Z.S Suaning, electronics and vocals
- 12 students from Kulturskolen in Esbjerg, youth polygon
- Michael Zimmer and Marius Brogaard Aeppli, engineering
Day program 2025
Rued Langgard Festival in Ribe, September 4-7
Thursday
Fridays
SATURDAY
Sunday
Venues
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