This new album by Gavle Symphony Orchestra and conductor Jaime Martin includes two perhaps finest orchestral works by Max Reger (1873-1916) written towards the end of his life, the Four Tone Poems after Bocklin and the Romantic Suite, both sensous and poetic works suggesting a loose connection with Debussy. Reger's 150th anniversary of birth was celebrated in 2023. Yet, much of Reger's music appears on concert programmes only very occasionally. During his own lifetime Reger was highly admired: Paul Hindemith described Reger as "the last giant of music," and when Schoenberg founded his Society for Private Musical Performances in 1918, Max Reger, along with Debussy and Bartok, was one of the most frequently performed composers. Admiring Reger as an important innovator, Schoenberg promoted his music because "he still remains unfamiliar" and "I consider him a genius". Reger's Four Tone Poems after Bocklin and the Romantic Suite are sufficient to prove that Schoenberg was totally right.

Classical Music

Reger: 3 Suites for Cello Solo, Op. 131c

HAYDN: SONATA FOR PIANO NO 50

REGER: PIANO MUSIC FOR FOUR HA

MUSIC INSPIRED BY H?LDERLIN -

3 VIOLA SUITES VIOLIN SONATAS

Reger: Cello Suites, Op. 131c, Nos. 1-3

To describe Busoni's Fantasia contrappuntistica in all of its incredible detail would be the work of a graduate seminar in counterpoint. Busoni begins with a setting, divided into several variations, of the Lutheran chorale “Ehre sei Gott in der Ho?he” He goes on to develop, and eventually combine, all three of Bach’s subjects from the unfinished fugue. Then, after the connecting cadenza, he ventures beyond Bach’s original plan by writing a quadruple fugue that combines the chorale melody with the three original subjects. None of this, of course, need concern the general listener. It is enough that the Fantasia contrappuntistica is a work of exhilarating and beautiful power.

Reger was fond of the cello and wrote some of his best music for it. The Fourth Cello Sonata, Op. 116 (published in 1911), is an example of his mature cham- ber music style, and makes a better display of his undeniable powers than many of his more ambitious scores.

Founded in 1950 as a chamber music workshop for professional musicians, the Marlboro Festival has attracted outstanding concert and chamber music artists who have come to Vermont at their own expense to exchange musical ideas and to play chamber music. Away from the routine pressures of professional activity, they are free to explore the vast literature combining piano, strings, woodwinds, brass and voice, with concern only for the music itself. Weekend Festival concerts have been described by Time magazine as “the most exciting chamber music in the U.S.”

Brilliant Classics have celebrated the 150th Anniversary of Reger’s birth last year by expanding their Reger Collection of a decade ago from 11 to 18 CDs. Added to the original set, which presented Reger’s best known works – the glorious orchestral Böcklin Suite, the Mozart, Beethoven and Hiller Variations, the mighty piano and violin concertos, the beautiful clarinet quintet (not in the least inferior to Brahms’ masterpiece), the complete Chorale Fantasias for organ (Reger, an organist himself, wrote extensively and superbly for his instrument) and a fine selection of choral music – is a new set of chamber music including the Piano Trio, Flute-Violin-Viola Serenades, Clarinet–Piano Sonatas and other works, and Reger’s compositions for solo viola and for solo cello. The transparency of the chamber music genre particularly highlights the composer’s absolute mastery of counterpoint. Also new is an expanded keyboard section, with more works for the organ – so associated with Reger – including the Sonatas and Fantasy–Fugues, and a new solo piano CD recorded in 2023 by Eden Walker featuring Dreams by the Fireside and the Bach Variations and Fugue.

Classical Music

COMPLETE WORKS FOR CLARINET &

Classical Music

CLARINET QUINTET A-DUR, CLARIN

Classical Music

On his new GENUIN album, cellist Christian Erben, a member of the renowned Gewandhaus Orchestra, presents one of the most intriguing oeuvres for his instrument from the 20th century: Max Reger's three suites for solo cello. Baroque grandeur and intellectual depth, late-Romantic harmony, and masterful counterpoint: no one had explored the soloistic possibilities of perhaps the most human of all instruments as comprehensively since Johann Sebastian Bach as Max Reger did. Christian Erben delves into the immense suites down to the finest detail and brings their tonal intricacies to light!

Max Reger is best known for vast, abstract keyboard works in fugue and variation form. But alongside these masterful constructions his creativity also turned to more introspective album pages that reveal an entirely different side to his character. The influence of Schumann can be found in the first of his Improvisationen alongside echoes of Brahms and Chopin in the Six Morceaux. We also encounter rhapsodic miniatures from Aus meinem Tagebuch and the popular Maria-Wiegenlied, with the late collection Tr�ume am Kamin appearing as a self-confessional summary of Reger's career and style.

Complete Works For Cello And P

Works For Solo Violin Op.91 &

Complete Works For Clarinet An

Suites For Cello

Reger, Reubke: Organ Works

LIEDER

This is not an historical recording. Yet mysteriously the music is performed in an interpretation which is historically authentic down to the last detail. The key to this mystery is: The original performer was present at the recent recording session, but not physically: The music is heard on a modern Steinway. Never has music stored in the Welte-Mignon system sounded so "right" or so good. Thanks to TACET's much-praised recording technique, and because the Welte-Mignon memory system and sound production mechanism have now been newly adjusted for the first time by the leading expert in the field - and are thus able to meet TACET's requirements. (Welte-Mignon was invented in 1904.) the Welte-Mignon mystery can now speak to US without distortion.

Classical Music