CPO’s successful Reger edition continues here with the fifth volume in the successful series, even as critics are still raving about the previous release. Musik & Theater wrote of Volume 4: “These recordings number among the best currently available.” The German organist and choral conductor, Gerhard Weinberger, studied organ with Franz Lehrndorfer and church music at the Musikhochschule in Munich. In 1971, he was the prize winner in organ at the renowned international ARD Music Competition. In 1974, after spending three years directing the choir at Saint Lorenz Basilica in Kempten, Gerhard Weinberger assumed a teaching post in organ and church music at the Munich Musikhochschule. He was Professor of Organ there from 1977 to 1983. Currently he is Professor of Organ and Director of the Church Music Department at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, Germany. He is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and of the Leipzig New Bach Society directorate. Gerhard Weinberger's wide repertoire ranges from pre-Baroque to music of the 20th century, with a special emphasis on the works of J.S. Bach and Max Reger. He has given recitals throughout Europe, Asia and America.

This new release is the third volume in the complete organ works of Max Reger. German composer Max Reger was also an accomplished organist, and his music for organ is a staple among the repertoire. Organist Cerhard Weinberger performs these works. Weinbergeris also a renowned editor of organ music.

This new release, featuring the recording premiere of his complete chorale cantatas, is in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of composer Max Reger’s death. Although raised Catholic, Reger had an early fascination with Protestant music, much to the concern of his family. Regers chorale contributions to the Protestant church cannot be overlooked, and he submitted many compositions to the monthly Monatschrift fur Gottesdienst und kirchliche Kunst.

The new cpo edition featuring Gerhard Weinberger playing organ works of Max Reger (1873-1916) on great organs that survive from his times has reached its second volume. Reger's chorale fantasias above all occupy the focus, the instruments once again very well chosen. Not only the Furtwängler & Hammer organ in the Verden Cathedral seems to be especially predestined for Max Reger's organ music; the 1912 Stahlhuth organ too enables the greatest possible differentiation with its rich tonal palette… a very decisive factor in rendering the nuanced sound structures in this composer's organ music.

Following the great success of Gerhard Weinberger’s new and most comprehensive recording ever of Bach’s organ works (German Record Critics Prize, 2009), Mr. Weinberger and CPO now turn to a new edition featuring the organ compositions of Max Reger in performances on selected magnificent organs surviving from Reger’s period. The composer’s overall oeuvre for the organ enabled this instrument to gain new prestige. Vol. 1 contains works offering eloquent testimony to Reger’s veneration of Bach.

In order to take a respite and, in his own worlds, “to recuperate,” from his own compositions, Max Reger frequently engaged in “piece work,” in which he would arrange works by other composers. This release includes Reger’s original work 5 Orchestral Songs, as well as Reger’s arrangements of songs for voice and orchestra from Edvard Grieg, Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf, and Franz Schubert. Conductor Gregor Buhl has made his mark as an opera conductor. He also frequently performs on the concert stage with the Radio Symphony Orchestras of Berlin, Hamburg, and Leizip, and the Helsinki Philharmonic.

Arnold Schönberg in 1922 said of Max Reger, “In my view, Reger must be played often; 1. Because he wrote a lot; 2. Because he is dead and we still do not have any clarity about him. (I consider him a genius).; Arnold Schönberg founded the Society for Musical Private Performances in November of 1918 in Mödling. The purpose of the organization was ‘to give Arnold Schönberg the opportunity personally to carry out his intention of providing artists and art lovers with a veritable and precise knowledge of Modern Music’ (Alban Berg 1919). The group put special emphasis on performing works by Max Reger.; This arrangement of Reger’s Violin Concerto Op. 101 was written by Rudolf Kolisch (1896-1978), a violinist who studied under Schrecker and Schönberg.; Featured soloist on this recording is Winfried Rademacher, professor of violin at the Musikhochschule in Trossingen. He is respected both in the concert hall and in the recording studio.

Carl Seemann – The ORFEO recordings – Carl Seemann was the kind of pianist who didn’t try to impress audiences with brilliant virtuosity. Instead, he understood the piano as his ideal medium for revealing a polyphonic structure on a single instrument. After his death on November 26th, 1983, at the age of 73, in Freiburg, it took some 25 years before the recordings of his studio and concert performances began to be re(dis)covered and today he is once again regarded as one of the leading German pianists of the post-war era. On the occasion of his 40th year of death, ORFEO releases this 7 CD anniversary box with all his recordings on the label and an additional booklet that highlights Carl Seemann’s artistic background and his pianistic environment.

REVIEW:

Pianist Carl Seemann (1910-1983) largely specialized in the Viennese classics, and tended to shine more in collaborations than when under the solo spotlight.

His 1965 Bach Partitas, for example, range from workaday (Nos. 2 and 6) to sensitive and cultivated (No. 3 and No. 5’s outer movements). By contrast, his 1964 recital with frequent partner violinist Wolfgang Schneiderhan features congenial and inspired readings of the Bach E major, Beethoven E-flat Op. 12 No. 3, Mozart B-flat K. 454, and Schubert A major D. 574 sonatas.

The 1979 Mozart C major concerto K. 503 with the NDR Symphony Orchestra under Wilfried Boettcher is sluggish and heavy in the outer movements compared alongside Seemann’s 1950 DG studio recording, which wasn’t all that great to begin with. However, the 1972 E-flat K. 449 captures Seemann on fine form in a work he otherwise did not record. Here his energized and poetic solo work is complemented by Leopold Hager’s shapely orchestral framework.

Seemann’s boring and heavy-handed Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 precedes a stylishly flexible 1962 performance of that composer’s Sonata No. 9 in E major Op. 14 No. 1. The 1952 broadcast of Beethoven’s Bagatelles Op. 126 is basically a sonically drab replica of Seemann’s engaging, vibrant, and better engineered 1951 DG studio version. As I listened to cellist Enrico Mainardi’s 1956 Bach Viola da gamba Sonata in D major BWV 1028, I was struck by how the pianist’s tone seemed unusually mellifluous and nuanced. Then I looked at the booklet, and it turned out that the pianist was Carlo Zecchi, not Seemann! No wonder! Yet the real Carl Seemann holds more interest throughout a 1973 Reger Sonata No. 4 than Mainardi, who was way past his prime by that date.

The collection’s final disc focuses on Paul Hindemith conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. They are not so polished as The Philharmonia Orchestra in Hindemith’s EMI recording of the Symphony for Concert Band, yet they bring more urgency and surface excitement to the fugal finale. The Bavarian musicians rise to the occasion in The Four Temperaments, where I prefer Clara Haskil’s limpid and sparkling fingerwork to pianist Hans Otte in Hindemith’s DG Berlin Philharmonic recording.

Considering that Berg’s Chamber Concerto was hardly a repertoire staple in 1955, Hindemith obtains impressive ensemble cohesion and discipline. Seemann handles the difficult piano part cleanly and securely, capably complementing violinist Wolfgang Marschner’s expressive agility. That said, Marschner comes more alive partnered alongside Paul Jacobs’ fleeter, more incisive pianism in a 1959 Köln Radio broadcast featuring Hermann Scherchen’s volatile podium presence.

At the very least I’m happy to have Seemann’s recital with Schneiderhan, his Mozart K. 449, and his more successful Bach Partita movements in my permanent collection, together with the Zecchi and Haskil selections. Christoph Schlüren’s annotations provide useful biographical information about Seemann and his career.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

The most comprehensive survey ever made of Reger’s organ music, on a range of superb Austrian, German, and Swiss instruments: a fitting tribute to the composer on the 150th anniversary of his birth.

Roberto Marini's feat of performing Reger's entire output for organ in Italy within a single year (2002) was followed in 2011-13 by this remarkable achievement on record. On the basis of authoritative new critical editions compiled by the Max Reger Institute, Marini recorded the works on historical instruments of Reger's time, which with their orchestral richness of color and dynamic possibilities correspond to the soundworld of an epoch that believed in progress in every dimension and embodied a kind of striving heroism as an attitude to both life and art.

First released in individual albums on the Fugatto label, this box compiles Roberto Marini’s Reger albums complete for the first time, together with an authoritative essay by Suzanne Pepp on Reger’s output for organ.

Inspired by Franz Schubert's late lieder compositions and works by Johannes Brahms, among others, in which voice and piano are enhanced by another melody instrument, we have taken a completely new approach to our lieder recital repertoire. The result can now be heard on this CD: Songs of the Romantic period, freshly arranged for soprano, violoncello and piano.
In art songs, as in chamber music in general, there are often concealed lines within the piano movements which gain greatly in expression through the accompaniment of a solo instrument. For this reason, we feel that our combination of voice, piano and melody instrument is particularly effective and has an enriching effect on the listening experience of the art songs presented here. The contrasting registers of soprano and cello complement both the music and the substance of the text from different angles, the timbre of the cello being ideal for the hues and shades of these songs as its solo role augments these delicate arrangements. The work"Auf dem Strom" by Franz Schubert - also on this CD - is one of the best-known original compositions of this genre.

Max Reger (1873–1916) is noted for his devotion to Johann Sebastian Bach. His 3 Suites for Viola Solo Op. 131d – completed a year before his death – belong to a collection of works with an ancient feel in the style of Bach, which also comprises music for solo violin, for two violins and for cello. The three solo viola suites all emphasize the polyphonic nature of an instrument that to this day is still considered monodic.

Henri Vieuxtemps (1820–1881) was a key exponent of the Franco-Belgian school of advanced virtuoso violin technique and a contributor to the founding of the Russian school. His Capriccio per viola sola, Op. 55 begins with the instruction Lento, con molta espressione, a character that pervades the entire work. It is packed with rapid virtuosic passages that are challenging both for the left hand and the bow, maintaining a constant dialogue across a range of timbres.

In the 1970s, following years of avant-garde experimentation, the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki (1933–2020) returned to a more ‘classic’ style, with conventional notation and melodies or small melodic intervals at the heart of his works. This is true of his Cadenza for Solo Viola, written in 1984. It is considered a piece in its own right, despite close links with the Viola Concerto written a year earlier.

Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) composed his Elegy for solo viola in 1930. Discovered only after his death, it can be seen as a youthful musical reflection and commentary on his miserable boarding school experience.

The Élégie for solo viola by Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971), composed in 1944, arguably has the structure of a two-part invention, divided up into exposition, fugue and recapitulation, and the various stages highlight the instrument’s polyphony with echoes of Bach.

Next to the quintets of Brahms and Mozart, the clarinet quintet by Max Reger is one of the "war horses" for each clarinet player. Reger had a very prominent female composer student, Johanna Senfter, who was only discovered in the early 21st century. In a WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING her Clarinet Quintet shows, what a talent and professionality she developped.