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MAX REGER ORCHESTRAL EDITION SYMPHONIC CHORAL WORKS ORCHESTRAL SONGS MAX REGER 1873-1916 SYMPHONIC CHORAL WORKS ORCHESTRAL SONGS MAX REGER 2 A Requiem op. 144b 15:24 E Die Weihe der Nacht op. 119 16:17 for alto solo, chorus and orchestra for alto solo, male chorus and orchestra Text: Friedrich Hebbel The Consecration of the Night Text: Friedrich Hebbel Requiem (fragment) WoO V/9 for 4 soloists, chorus, orchestra and organ Psalm 100 op. 106 B Requiem aeternam – Kyrie eleison [op. 145a] 22:04 for chorus, orchestra and organ C Dies irae 13:48 F “Jauchzet dem Herrn alle Welt” 11:28 Maestoso (animato) D Gesang der Verklärten op. 71 17:35 G “Erkennet, dass der Herr Gott ist” 8:03 for chorus and orchestra Andante sostenuto Chant of the Transfigured H “Gehet zu seinen Toren ein” 2:46 Text: Carl Busse Allegretto con grazia I “Denn der Herr ist freundlich” 8:44 Andante sostenuto – Allegro maestoso Yoko Kawahara soprano Marga Höffgen alto J Weihegesang WoO V/6 10:38 Hans-Dieter Bader tenor for alto solo, chorus and wind orchestra Nikolaus Hillebrand bass Song of Consecration Text: Otto Liebmann NDR Chor Chorus Master: Alexander Šumski Lioba Braun alto A | Ursula Kunz alto F NDR Sinfonieorchester Chor der Bamberger Symphoniker Roland Bader Chorus Master: Rolf Beck | Fritz Walter-Lindquist organ Recording: Hamburg, Friedrich-Ebert-Halle, 11/1979 Bamberger Symphoniker | Horst Stein Recording Engineer (Tonmeister): Friedrich-Karl Wagner | Assistant Recording Engineer: Willy Jaeschke ൿ 1981 [4]/1988 [1–3] Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Berlin Recordings: Bamberg, Dominikanerbau, 3/1992 [6–10] & Konzerthalle Bamberg, Joseph-Keilberth-Saal, 2/1994 [5] Recording Producer: Michael Kempff | Recording Engineer: Peter Zelnhöfer 1995 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Berlin 3 K Die Nonnen op. 112 28:45 Q Mariä Wiegenlied op. 76/52 2:26 for chorus and orchestra Cradle Song of the Virgin The Nuns Text: Martin Boelitz Text: Martin Boelitz R Äolsharfe op. 75/11 3:01 The Aeolian Harp Orchestral Songs Text: Hermann Ritter von Lingg S op. 98/1 3:01 L Glück op. 76/16 2:11 Aus den Himmelsaugen Happiness From the Eyes of Heaven Text: Ernst Ludwig Schellenberg Text: Heinrich Heine T Das Dorf op. 97/1 1:59 M Mittag op. 76/35 1:53 Midday The Village Text: Ernst Ludwig Schellenberg Text: Martin Boelitz U Flieder op. 35/4 3:07 N Glückes genug op. 37/3 2:37 Happiness enough Lilac Text: Detlev von Liliencron Text: Otto Julius Bierbaum V Mein Traum op. 31/5 5:43 O Wiegenlied op. 43/5 2:52 Cradle Song My Dream Text: Richard Dehmel Text: Anna Ritter W Fromm op. 62/11 2:40 P Des Kindes Gebet op. 76/22 2:14 The Child’s Prayer Devout Text: Ludwig Rafael (i.e. Hedwig Kiesekamp) Text: Gustav Falke X An die Hoffnung op. 124 12:40 To Hope Text: Friedrich Hölderlin 4 Lioba Braun alto L– X HORST STEIN Chor der Bamberger Symphoniker K Chorus Master: Rolf Beck Bamberger Symphoniker Horst Stein Recording: Konzerthalle Bamberg, Joseph-Keilberth-Saal, 5 & 6/1995 Recording Producers: Michael Kempff [11]; Almut Telsnig [12–24] Recording Engineers: Herbert Frühbauer [11]; Peter Zelnhöfer [12–24] Publisher: Bote & Bock [12, 13] ൿ 1999 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Berlin HORST STEIN 9 5 derful melodies and its colourful shifts of harmony risk pendant, Die Nonnen op. 112, is based on a mystically Max Reger’s Orchestral Works disorientating the listener. Schoenberg admired its transfigured contemporary poem and contrasts two prose-like melodies and a “familiarity with note-rela- very different worlds: the sensuously disorientating tionships that recalls Bach”, yet few violinists chose to world in which the action of the poem is set, and the Max Reger’s orchestral output defies any easy categor- notion of vagueness and ambiguity, while his Sinfo- champion a piece which according to Reger “fundamen- singing of the nuns, which Reger described as “chaste” ization. Poised, as he was, on the cusp of modernism, nietta op. 90 finds him distancing himself from the sym- tally avoids all hankering after empty effects”. His Piano and which strikes an altogether archaic note. No less he paid no heed to stylistic or generic boundaries but phonic poems of his Munich colleagues and adopting the Concerto op. 114 of 1910, which the composer regard- ambivalent are the last two works that Reger wrote in created a distinctive musical language made up of mod- four-movement design of a symphony, in which chamber ed as “a kind of Brahms D minor Concerto translated Leipzig. Die Weihe der Nacht op. 119 was written at a els and counter-models. textures are writ large. Reproached for the density of his into the language of modernism”, is likewise not a vir- time of deep depression for him. At its first performance From the remote enclave of Weiden in the Upper instrumentation, Reger reacted with an orchestral Ser- tuoso work, for all that it is difficult to play. Its motivic he vowed to begin a new life without alcohol – he had Palatinate, Reger achieved his breakthrough with a enade op. 95 in which the textures have been noticeably writing extends, in Reger’s words, “to its tiniest ramifi- just been appointed court Kapellmeister in Meiningen. series of bold organ works notable for their polyphonic thinned out. Here, he insisted, he had written in a way cations”. It dates from the same year as Schoenberg’s His Comedy Overture op. 120 is a tour de force of bril- thinking and uncompromising expressivity. Conversely, that was intelligible to “every fine specimen from Noah’s first atonal composition and yet, as Reger insisted, it liant volatility that draws on all the topoi of humour in he wrote only three orchestral works during this period: Ark”, while the complex textures that were typical of his marked the start of a journey “that will lead to a goal music and attests to the composer’s delight at the two Violin Romances op. 50, whose amiable character style were “served up in a spirit of gallantry”. sooner than all the new ways”. Two years earlier Reger thought of being placed in charge of his own orchestra. may be explained by reference to their dedications to By 1907 Reger was professor of composition in had written a Symphonic Prologue op. 108 that was With their modern discontinuity the orchestral works his publisher and his doctor, and a Scherzino WoO I/6, Leipzig. With his Hiller Variations op. 100 he returned to inspired by no specific tragedy but which depicts an that Reger wrote in Meiningen make it abundantly clear which according to its autograph score was composed a medium he had already explored with his piano varia- inner drama that oscillates between despair, rebellion just how freely their composer could handle a whole for an amateur orchestra and which reveals its com- tions on themes by Bach and Beethoven. The theme is and submission. It builds to a dramatically, tense climax range of different musical styles. The result was a series poser’s sense of humour by placing a number of obs- broken down into blocks and serves as the starting that is at odds with its structure as a symphonic move- of individual works whose art of instrumentation reveals tacles in the horn player’s path in the form of its rapid point for a series of pointed character-pieces that follow ment, with the result that Reger later advised perform- the extent to which Reger was able to profit from his tempo and dense chromatic writing. an improvisatory impulse rather than any purposeful ers to cut the recapitulation: “Mont Blanc should come daily contact with a small but outstanding orchestra. His Not until he moved to Munich did Reger apply himself development. The symmetry of the theme inspired the only once.” His setting of Psalm 100 op. 106 was written Concerto in the Olden Style op. 123 harks back to the to larger works, all of which reflect the ideal that he had composer to write a piece that is full of surprises and in 1908/09 to thank the University of Jena for awarding world of the Baroque concerto grosso, while at the same developed in his chamber music, in which all the voices that he himself described as “fundamentally jolly”. Its him an honorary doctorate of philosophy. The piece time looking forward to the 1920s. The Romantic Suite are treated as equals and all are involved in the motivic final fugue is a bravura movement based on two sub- displays its composer’s polyphonic abilities combined op.b125 is an example of German Impressionism, a night writing. In his four-part choral work Gesang der Ver- jects. At its climax the theme of the variations is com- with an overwhelming power of expression. At the cli- song inspired by the poems of Joseph von Eichendorff klärten op. 71, which he dedicated to the woman he had bined with the fugue subject. With his Violin Concerto max of the final fugue, the Protestant hymn Ein feste that combines echoes of Debussy with the strains of recently married, the dense textures, with their orna- op. 101, conversely, Reger created what he called a Burg is heard on distant trumpets and trombones, cast- Tristan und Isolde and motifs based on the notes B flat, mentally proliferating lines, embody a very modern “damnably serious work”, although its wealth of won- ing its radiance over the fugal textures. Its Catholic A, C and B – in German nomenclature, B–A–C–H. For 6 its part the Hölderlin setting An die Hoffnung op.