Reger 101

[Glazier]

What would be the five best pieces to convince someone that Reger is worth their time?
Also the five pieces to avoid?

[mbhaub]

For a long time I was convinced that Reger's music was dull, academic, boring and not worth my time. That was because I read some rude things written about his music by others. Then the cd era came, and one of the first things I bought was on Orfeo: Variations on a Theme of Hiller and A Ballet Suite. Colin Davis and the BRSO didn't hurt. I love that disk, and still play it frequently some 25 years later. It's delightful music, very melodious, well harmonized and lushly orchestrated. Then I found the Variations on a Theme of Beethoven and it was equally wonderful. And then the Variations on a Theme of Mozart -- great stuff. I have also enjoyed A Romantic Suite and Four Symphonic Poems after paintings by Arnold Bocklin. I completely enjoy his orchestral music and haven't been bored or disappointed yet.

I also enjoy the violin concerto, but the piano concerto is a bit much -- tough slogging, that. I've also been impressed and even moved by some of the choral music like the Requiem, the Latin Requiem and the Dies Irae.  I haven't gone too far into the chamber music, and the organ music is still terra incognita. Some day...



If you like the sound world of composers like Schreker, Schmidt, Pfitzner, late Brahms even, you might really like Reger. Start with that Orfeo disk!

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Six (I'm a rule breaker!) works I'd put high on my list:

Op 86 Variations & Fugue on a Theme of Beethoven - 2 pianos
Op 104 String Quartet in E flat
Op 113 Quartet for Violin, Viola, Cello & Piano
Op 124 An die Hoffnung - Voice & Orchestra
Op 126 Clarinet Quintet in A major
Op 136 Hymnus der Liebe - Voice & Orchestra

And of course all the orchestral works cited above.

I'm not going to incude 5 to avoid for that would probably say more about me rather than Reger!

Peter

[Hovite]

Four Symphonic Poems after paintings by Arnold Bocklin

That work is a good place to start.

[Alan Howe]

Yes, the Böcklin tone poems are undoubtedly the best place to start...

[A Nyholm]

When it comes to Reger, here are four (not five, sorry!) primary recommendations of mine:

Even though I haven't heard all of them, what I've heard from the Three Suites for Solo Viola is perhaps the finest music that I know of by Reger. Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Johann Sebastian Bach, Op.81 is a magnificent and very beautiful work - one of my absolute favourites when it comes to piano music. The Ballet Suite for Orchestra is a fine work, with more of Bavarian beer foam than Viennese champagne bubbles to it. It proves that Reger can be "light", in his own way. The piece is interesting from a chronological point of view, since it was composed in 1913 – when a considerably more famous ballet score was given its first performance...

A fourth recommendation, just for some unsung Reger: his Scherzino for Horn and Strings is a lovely miniature concerto that shouldn't be missed.

Anders

[Glazier]

My Reger biography.

I owned an LP of the clarinet quintet but found it disappointing and aimless compared with the Brahms.

Recently I heard on the radio and recorded the 5th vl sonata and the Waltz fantasy for p duet. The latter was about as uninteresting as a waltz can get, but the violin sonata had some great moments.
The 1st movt is typically dense Reger but with some exctiing climaxes. The second movement is a revelation: light and airy, a great surprise. 

So the vs goes into top slot, the p duet work at the bottom.

[Jonathan]

I'd recommend Reger's 4 Sonatinas, Op.89.  They are lovely, not at all dense works which put pay to the myth that Reger wrote heavily contrapuntal works.  The first work I heard by him was the Variations and Fugue on a theme by Hiller - I think it was at the Proms about 15 years ago and I was bowled over.  Not long afterwards, I heard the Symphonic Prelude to a Tragedy which is also excellent.  I've got the 7 CD box set of various orchestral works and there is not one dud amongst them.  The Romantic Suite is especially good.  I'd really like to get Markus Becker's complete piano music but it's still realy expensive and appears to have been deleted.  I hope someday Brilliant will buy the rights to it and release it cheaply!

[JimL]

There was an old Columbia LP of the Piano Concerto when I was a kid.  I listened to it and considered it awful - not a discernable tune in the whole piece. 

[eschiss1]

Though even this is an acquired taste (that I've acquired), I favor and recommend the chamber music and a few of his orchestral works and organ works (e.g. the 2nd organ sonata), at this time anyway, though the list of what-I-like in that category is growing.  The two string trios are I think a good place to start with (they were available on one short-measure CD from Calig that I have and enjoy, now Naxos has two CDs where they share space with the two late piano quartets.)
The later violin sonatas, the cello sonatas and later string quartets are good stuff in good performances (quartets 4&5 on Koch Schwann; all 5 quartets are on cpo, most of the chamber music is on either cpo or MDG but I haven't heard most of those performances yet.)

I haven't yet heard all the works in Peter Shott's list (An die Hoffnung is a major gap, not sure Hymnus der Liebe rings a bell- will have to look into that... I also haven't yet heard Reger's Hebbel Requiem... or a lot else by him yet, true) and don't know the clarinet quintet at all well yet unfortunately but tend to agree with his selection. But then I have trouble limiting myself to five also, apologies...

Among the orchestral works maybe try also-
the violin concerto op. 101 (why not, since this is "Reger 101", and the violin concerto is a lovely work)
the "Symphonic Prolog to a Tragedy" op. 108 (probably not the work to start with, but appropriately dramatic, a half-hour sonata movement in Reger's best and typical manner.)
the "Sinfonietta" op. 90

Marc-Andre Hamelin performs two big Reger piano works (which I once had in a David Levine performance) - the variations and fugues (in B minor on a theme of Bach, in B-flat on a theme of Telemann) on a Hyperion CD. Haven't heard these performances but imagine that they're excellent.  The Bach work I prefer to the Telemann, myself (this is not a swipe at Telemann, whose music I do enjoy, though not as much as I do Bach's - just irrelevant to the Reger question ) Reger wrote several variations and fugue sets (e.g. the Hiller set for orchestra, the Beethoven set for two pianos or for orchestra) and both the form and maybe the harmonic style can be heard as an influence in some Szymanowski works (finale of 2nd piano sonata and of 2nd symphony) by way of a by the way as has been remarked

Eric

[albion]

I've got the 7 CD box set of various orchestral works and there is not one dud amongst them.

The only Reger orchestral works that I know are the Hiller and Mozart Variations (although I also once had the 1989 Jarvi recording of the Böcklin Tone Poems on a Chandos LP), so I've just been looking at the Berlin Classics box of seven discs -



Eine Ballettsuite, Op. 130
Concerto for orchestra 'Im alten Stil', Op. 123
Beethoven-Variationen Op. 86
Variations and Fugue on a theme of Johann Adam Hiller Op. 100
Variations and Fugue for Orchestra on a Theme by Mozart, Op. 132
Four Tone Poems after A. Böcklin Op. 128
Sinfonietta in A major, Op. 90
An die Hoffnung, Op. 124
Hymnus der Liebe, Op.136
Violin Concerto in A major, Op. 101
Piano Concerto in F minor, Op. 114
Symphonic Prologue to a Tragedy, Op. 108
Eine romantische Suite Op. 125

This looks like a pretty good conspectus, although some of the recordings are quite elderly now.

I notice that many of the works specifically recommended in this thread are included - it's clearly a hit with Jonathan: has anybody else been similarly tempted? 

[alberto]

I own all these works (mostly in the Berlin Classics recordings;  some in more than one versions) except op.96 and op.130.
I'm just reflecting that (luckily, I would say) Reger is not so unsung : indeed I could attend (not in a metropolis) in actual concerts (and albeit in many years) performances of at least the Mozart Variations (twice), the Tone Poems after Boecklin, the Romantic Suite , the Piano Concerto and (that's outside the Berlin Cl. box) the substantial Serenade for Orchestra (I own a deleted Koch recording, Horst Stein conducting).

[eschiss1]

Hrm. Very few at all in the US, I think. Might be mistaken.
My own collection of Reger is chiefly chamber works (string quartets, string trios, violin sonatas, piano trios, etc.) with a few organ works and maybe three orchestral works (a recording of the violin concerto, and Segerstam's fine BIS recording of the Mozart Variations along with the - striking, I think - half-hour-long symphonic movement Prolog to a Tragedy.)

[albion]

Eine Ballettsuite, Op. 130
Concerto for orchestra 'Im alten Stil', Op. 123
Beethoven-Variationen Op. 86
Variations and Fugue on a theme of Johann Adam Hiller Op. 100
Variations and Fugue for Orchestra on a Theme by Mozart, Op. 132
Four Tone Poems after A. Böcklin Op. 128
Sinfonietta in A major, Op. 90
An die Hoffnung, Op. 124
Hymnus der Liebe, Op.136
Violin Concerto in A major, Op. 101
Piano Concerto in F minor, Op. 114
Symphonic Prologue to a Tragedy, Op. 108
Eine romantische Suite Op. 125

Picked this up from the Post Office depot this morning and am just about to embark on a Reger odyssey - wish me luck, I may be some time! 

[Lionel Harrsion]

Picked this up from the Post Office depot this morning and am just about to embark on a Reger odyssey - wish me luck, I may be some time! 

Not as long as Captain Oates, I hope!