Composers

Max Reger

Piano
Voice
Organ
Violin
Mixed chorus
Orchestra
Cello
Viola
Alto
Soprano
Song
Lied
Piece
Religious music
Fugue
Sonata
Choruses
Sacred songs
Fantasia
Sacred choruses
by popularity

#

10 Gesänge, Op.8310 Jugendlieder10 Kleine Vortragsstücke, Op.4410 Lieder, Op.1510 Stücke, Op.6912 Chöre aus dem Volksliederbuch, WoO VI/2612 Deutsche geistliche Gesänge, WoO VI/1312 Geistliche Lieder, Op.13712 Kleine Stücke nach eigenen Liedern, Op.103c12 Lieder, Op.5112 Lieder, Op.6612 Stücke, Op.5912 Stücke, Op.6512 Stücke, Op.8012 Walzercapricen, Op.914 Chorales for 4, 5 or 6 Part Chorus, Op.79f15 Lieder, Op.5516 Gesänge, Op.6217 Gesänge, Op.7018 Lieder, Op.752 Choralfantasien, Op.402 Clarinet Sonatas, Op.492 Compositions, Op.872 Geistliche Gesänge, Op.192 Geistliche Lieder, Op.1052 Geistliche Lieder, WoO VII/302 Gesänge, Op.1442 Lieder2 Romances, Op.502 Schulfugen2 Stücke, Op.79e20 Deutsche Tänze, Op.1020 Responsories3 Albumblätter3 Choralbearbeitungen, Op.79g3 Choralfantasien, Op.523 Chöre, Op.63 Duets, Op.111a3 Duos, Canons und Fugen im alten Stil, Op.131b3 Gedichte von Elsa Asenijeff, WoO VII/443 Gesänge, Op.111b3 Gesänge, Op.111c3 Orgelstücke, Op.73 Sechsstimmige Chöre, Op.393 Suites for Solo Cello, Op.131c3 Suites for Solo Viola, Op.131d30 Kleine Choralvorspiele, Op.135a4 Gesänge, Op.884 Kirchengesänge, WoO VI/204 Klavierstücke4 Lieder, Op.234 Lieder, Op.974 Marienlieder, Op.61e4 Marienlieder, Op.61f4 Piano Sonatinas, Op.894 Preludes and Fugues, Op.854 Sonatas for Solo Violin, Op.424 Spezialstudien, WoO III/134 Tantum ergo, Op.61b4 Tantum ergo, Op.61c5 Aquarelles, Op.255 Choralkantaten, WoO V/45 Duets, Op.145 Gesänge, Op.375 Gesänge, Op.985 Humoresques, Op.205 Leicht ausführbare Präludien und Fugen, Op.565 Lieder, Op.125 Lieder, Op.85 Neue Kinderlieder, Op.1425 Pièces pittoresques, Op.345 Scherzkanons5 Spezialstudien52 Choralvorspiele, Op.676 Burlesques, Op.586 Gedichte von Anna Ritter, Op.316 Gesänge, Op.686 Intermezzos, Op.456 Klavierstücke, Op.246 Lieder, Op.1046 Lieder, Op.356 Preludes and Fugues, Op.996 Stücke, Op.946 Trauergesänge, Op.61g6 Trios, Op.476 Waltzes, Op.227 Charakterstücke, Op.327 Fantasiestücke, Op.267 Geistliche Volkslieder, WoO VI/147 Lieder, Op.487 Männerchöre, Op.387 Silhouettes, Op.537 Sonatas for Solo Violin, Op.917 Stücke, Op.1457 Waltzes, Op.118 Ausgewählte Volkslieder, WoO VI/118 Episodes, Op.1158 Geistliche Gesänge, Op.1388 Improvisations, Op.188 Lieder, Op.438 Marienlieder, Op.61d8 Tantum ergo, Op.61a9 Ausgewählte Volkslieder, WoO VI/79 Stücke, Op.129

A

Abendfrieden, WoO VII/40Abschiedslied, WoO VI/27Albumblatt, WoO II/13Allegretto grazioso, WoO II/14Allegro, WoO II/18Altniederländisches Dankgebet, WoO IV/17Am Meer, VII/18An die Hoffnung, Op.124An Zeppelin, WoO VI/21Andante und Rondo, Op.147Aus der Jugendzeit, Op.17Aus meinem Tagebuch, Op.82Auserlesene Stücke aus Opern von Richard Wagner

B

Bach TranscriptionsBefiehl dem Herrn deine Wege, WoO VII/34Bläserserenade, WoO I/9Blätter und Blüten, WoO III/12Brautring, WoO VII/24Bunte Blätter, Op.36

C

Caprice, WoO II/15Caprice, WoO III/21Castra vetera, WoO V/1Cello Sonata No. 1Cello Sonata No.2, Op.28Cello Sonata No.3, Op.78Cello Sonata No.4, Op.116Choralfantasie über "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott", Op.27Choralfantasie über "Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele", Op.30Choralvorspiele, Op.79bChorfuge, WoO VI/1Clarinet Quintet, Op.146Clarinet Sonata No.3, Op.107

D

Der 100. PsalmDer Dieb, WoO VII/38Der evangelische Kirchenchor, WoO VI/17Der Maien ist gestorben, WoO VII/39Die Nonnen, Op.112Die Weihe der Nacht, Op.119Dreistimmiger Kanon über 'Letzte Rose', WoO VIII/11

E

Eine Ballett-Suite, Op.130Eine Lustspielouvertüre, Op.120Eine romantische Suite, Op.125Eine vaterländische Ouvertüre, Op.140Es soll mein Gebet dich tragen, WoO VII/43Ewig dein!, WoO III/23

F

Fantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H, Op.46Fantasie und Fuge, Op.135bFantasie und Fuge, Op.29Fughette über das Deutschlandlied, WoO III/24

G

Geheimnis, WoO VII/26Geistliche Gesänge, Op.110Geistliches Lied, WoO VII/36Gesang der Verklärten, Op.71Gloriabuntur, WoO VI/3Grande valse de concert, WoO III/3Grüße an die Jugend, WoO III/6

H

Hoffnungslos, WoO VII/28Hymne an den Gesang, Op.21Hymne der Liebe, Op.136

I

Ich stehe hoch überm See, Op.14bImprovisation über 'An der schönen blauen Donau', WoO III/11In der Frühe, WoO VII/41In der Nacht, WoO III/18In verschwiegener Nacht, WoO VII/20Introduction und Passacaglia, WoO IV/6Introduction, Passacaglia and FugueIntroduction, Passacaglia und Fuge, Op.96

K

Kanon über 'Du bist verrückt, mein Kind', WoO VIII/4Kanons durch alle Dur- und Molltonarten, WoO III/4Kompositionen, Op.79aKompositionen, Op.79cKonzert im alten Stil, Op.123

L

Lacrimae ChristiLasset uns den Herren preisenLieder von Johannes Brahms für Pianoforte SoloLose Blätter, Op.13Lyrisches Andante, WoO III/7

M

Mädchenlied, WoO VII/27Maria, Himmelsfreud!, WoO VI/12Marsch der Stiftsdamen, WoO VIII/16Monologe, Op.63

N

Nachtgeflüster, WoO VII/23Nun kommt die Nacht gegangen

O

O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden, WoO IV/13Organ Sonata No.1, Op.33Organ Sonata No.2, Op.60Ostern, WoO VII/32Ouvertüre, WoO I/2

P

Palmsonntagmorgen, WoO VI/18Perpetuum mobile, WoO III/19Petite caprice, WoO II/11Piano Concerto, Op.114Piano Quartet No.1, Op.113Piano Quartet No.2, Op.133Piano Quintet in C-sharp minorPiano Quintet No.1, WoO II/9Piano Quintet No.2, Op.64Piano Trio No.1, Op.2Piano Trio No.2, Op.102Präludien und Fugen, Op.117Präludien und Fugen, Op.131aPräludium und Fuge, WoO III/2Präludium und Fuge, WoO IV/15Prelude and Fugue in F-sharp minor

R

Requiem, WoO V/9Requiemsatz, Op.145aRomanze, WoO II/10Romanze, WoO IV/11Römischer Triumphgesang, Op.126

S

Sämtliche OrgelwerkeSämtliche WerkeScherzino, WoO I/6Scherzo, WoO II/1Scherzo, WoO II/6Scherzo, WoO III/20Schlichte Weisen, Op.76Schlummerlied, WoO VII/33Sechs Lieder , Op. 4Serenade, Op.141aSerenade, Op.77aSerenade, Op.95Silvester-KanonenSinfonietta, Op.90Sonnenregen, WoO VII/29String Quartet No.1, Op.54 No.1String Quartet No.2, Op.54 No.2String Quartet No.3, Op.74String Quartet No.4, Op.109String Quartet No.5, Op.121String Sextet, Op.118String Trio No.1, Op.77bString Trio No.2, Op.141bSuite im alten Stil, Op.93Suite No.1, Op.16Suite No.2, Op.92Suite, Op.103aSuite, Op.79dSüße Ruh'Symphoniesatz, WoO I/3Symphonische Fantasie und Fuge, Op.57Symphonischer Prolog zu einer Tragödie, Op.108

T

Tantum ergo SacramentumTarantella, WoO II/12Tragt, blaue Träume, WoO VII/31Träume am Kamin, Op.143Trauungslied, WoO VII/34

V

Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Bach, Op.81Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Beethoven, Op.86Variations and Fugue on a Theme by HillerVariations and Fugue on a Theme by MozartVariations and Fugue on a Theme by Telemann, Op.134Variations and Fugue on an Original Theme, Op.73Variations and Fugue on 'God Save the King'Vater unser, WoO VI/22Vier Tondichtungen nach A. BöcklinVierstimmiger Kanon No.1 über 'Letzte Rose', WoO VIII/8Vierstimmiger Kanon No.2 über 'Letzte Rose', WoO VIII/15Violin Concerto, Op.101Violin Sonata No.1, Op.1Violin Sonata No.2, Op.3Violin Sonata No.3, Op.41Violin Sonata No.4, Op.72Violin Sonata No.5, Op.84Violin Sonata No.6, Op.103b No.1Violin Sonata No.7, Op.103b No.2Violin Sonata No.8, Op.122Violin Sonata No.9, Op.139Vorspiel über "Komm süßer Tod", WoO IV/3

W

Weihegesang, WoO V/6Weihnachtslied, WoO VII/37Wiegenlied, WoO VII/19Wiegenlied, WoO VII/42
Wikipedia
Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger (19 March 1873 – 11 May 1916), commonly known as Max Reger, was a German composer, pianist, organist, conductor, and academic teacher. He worked as a concert pianist, as a musical director at the Leipzig University Church, as a professor at the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig, and as a music director at the court of Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen.
Reger first composed mainly Lieder, chamber music, choral music and works for piano and organ. He later turned to orchestral compositions, such as the popular Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (1914), and to works for choir and orchestra such as Gesang der Verklärten (1903), Der 100. Psalm (1909), Der Einsiedler and the Hebbel Requiem (both 1915).
Born in Brand, Bavaria, Reger studied music theory in Sondershausen, then piano and theory in Wiesbaden. The first compositions to which he assigned opus numbers were chamber music and Lieder. A concert pianist himself, he composed works for both piano and organ. His first work for choir and piano to which he assigned an opus number was Drei Chöre (1892).
Reger returned to his parental home in 1898, where he composed his first work for choir and orchestra, Hymne an den Gesang (Hymn to singing), Op. 21. From 1899, he courted Elsa von Bercken who at first rejected him. He composed many songs such as Sechs Lieder, Op. 35, on love poems by five authors. Reger moved to Munich in September 1901, where he obtained concert offers and where his rapid rise to fame began. During his first Munich season, Reger appeared in ten concerts as an organist, chamber pianist and accompanist. Income from publishers, concerts and private teaching enabled him to marry in 1902. Because his wife Elsa was a divorced Protestant, he was excommunicated from the Catholic Church. He continued to compose without interruption, for example Gesang der Verklärten, Op. 71.
In 1907, Reger was appointed musical director at the Leipzig University Church, a position he held until 1908, and professor at the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig. In 1908 he began to compose Der 100. Psalm (The 100th Psalm), Op. 106, a setting of Psalm 100 for mixed choir and orchestra, for the 350th anniversary of Jena University. Part I was premiered on 31 July that year. Reger completed the composition in 1909, premiered in 1910 simultaneously in both Chemnitz and Breslau.
In 1911 Reger was appointed Hofkapellmeister (music director) at the court of Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen, responsible also for music at the Meiningen Court Theatre. He retained his master class at the Leipzig conservatory. In 1913 he composed four tone poems on paintings by Arnold Böcklin (Vier Tongedichte nach Arnold Böcklin), including Die Toteninsel (Isle of the Dead), as his Op. 128.
He gave up the court position in 1914 for health reasons. In response to World War I, he thought in 1914 already to compose a choral work to commemorate the fallen of the war. He began to set the Latin Requiem but abandoned the work as a fragment. He composed eight motets forming Acht geistliche Gesänge für gemischten Chor (Eight Sacred Songs), Op. 138, as a master of "new simplicity".
In 1915 he moved to Jena, commuting once a week to teach in Leipzig. He composed in Jena the Hebbel Requiem for soloist, choir and orchestra. Reger died of a heart attack while staying at a hotel in Leipzig on 11 May 1916. The proofs of Acht geistliche Gesänge, including "Der Mensch lebt und bestehet nur eine kleine Zeit", were found next to his bed.
Reger had also been active internationally as a conductor and pianist. Among his students were Joseph Haas, Sándor Jemnitz, Jaroslav Kvapil, Ruben Liljefors, Rudolf Serkin, George Szell and Cristòfor Taltabull.
Reger was the cousin of Hans von Koessler.
Reger produced an enormous output in just over 25 years, nearly always in abstract forms. His work was well known in Germany during his lifetime. Many of his works are fugues or in variation form, including the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart based on the opening theme of Mozart's Piano Sonata in A major, K. 331.
Reger wrote a large amount of music for organ, the most popular being the Benedictus from the collection Op. 59 and his Fantasy and Fugue on BACH, Op. 46. While a student under Hugo Riemann in Wiesbaden, Reger met the German organist, Karl Straube; they became friends and Straube premiered many of Reger's organ works, such as the Three chorale fantasias, Op. 52. Reger recorded some of his works on the Welte Philharmonic organ, including excerpt from 52 Chorale Preludes, Op. 67. He composed organ works for secular use, such as Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue, Op. 127, dedicated to Karl Straube who played the premiere during the 1913 opening of the Breslau Centennial Hall, when the Sauer organ [de] was inaugurated.
Reger was particularly attracted to the fugal form and created music in almost every genre, save for opera and the symphony (he did, however, compose a Sinfonietta, his op. 90). A similarly firm supporter of absolute music, he saw himself as being part of the tradition of Beethoven and Brahms. His work often combined the classical structures of these composers with the extended harmonies of Liszt and Wagner, to which he added the complex counterpoint of Bach. Reger's organ music, though also influenced by Liszt, was provoked by that tradition.
Some of the works for solo string instruments turn up often on recordings, though less regularly in recitals. His solo piano and two-piano music places him as a successor to Brahms in the central German tradition. He pursued intensively Brahms's continuous development and free modulation, whilst being rooted in Bach-influenced polyphony.
Reger was a prolific writer of vocal works, Lieder, works for mixed chorus, men's chorus and female chorus, and extended choral works with orchestra such as Der 100. Psalm and Requiem, a setting of a poem by Friedrich Hebbel, which Reger dedicated to the soldiers of World War I. He composed music to texts by poets such as Gabriele D'Annunzio, Otto Julius Bierbaum, Adelbert von Chamisso, Joseph von Eichendorff, Emanuel Geibel, Friedrich Hebbel, Nikolaus Lenau, Detlev von Liliencron, Friedrich Rückert and Ludwig Uhland. Reger assigned opus numbers to major works himself.
His works could be considered retrospective as they followed classical and baroque compositional techniques such as fugue and continuo. The influence of the latter can be heard in his chamber works which are deeply reflective and unconventional.
In 1898 Caesar Hochstetter, an arranger, composer and critic, published an article entitled "Noch einmal Max Reger" in a music magazine (Die redenden Künste 5 no. 49, pp. 943 f). Caesar recommended Reger as "a highly talented young composer" to the publishers. Reger thanked Hochstetter with the dedications of his piano pieces Aquarellen, Op. 25, and Cinq Pièces pittoresques, Op. 34.
Reger had an acrimonious relationship with Rudolf Louis, the music critic of the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten, who usually had negative opinions of his compositions. After the first performance of the Sinfonietta in A major, Op. 90, on 2 February 1906, Louis wrote a typically negative review on 7 February. Reger wrote back to him: "Ich sitze in dem kleinsten Zimmer in meinem Hause. Ich habe Ihre Kritik vor mir. Im nächsten Augenblick wird sie hinter mir sein!" ("I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me!"). Another source has the German composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert as the targeted critic of this letter.
Arnold Schoenberg was an admirer of Reger's: A letter he sent to Alexander von Zemlinsky in 1922 states: “Reger...must in my view be done often; 1, because he has written a lot; 2, because he is already dead and people are still not clear about him. (I consider him a genius.)”
The documentary Max Reger – Music as a perpetual state, by Andreas Pichler and Ewald Kontschieder, Miramonte Film, was released in 2002. It was the first factually based film documentation about Max Reger. It was produced in cooperation with the Max-Reger-Institute.
Max Reger: The Last Giant, a documentary film about the life and works of Max Reger, was released on 6 DVDs around December 2016 to mark the 100th anniversary of Reger's death. It is produced by Fugue State Films and includes excerpts from Reger's most important works for orchestra, piano, chamber ensemble and organ, with performances by Frauke May, Bernhard Haas, Bernhard Buttmann and the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt.
"1913". Max-Reger-Institute. 2016.