Max Reger Archive
“Humoresques” = Piano works by DVORAK; REGER; RACHMANINOFF; SCHUMANN – Daria Rabotkina – MSR Classics
A delightful collection with a unified thematic concept.
Reger – Maximum Reger / Max Reger: The Last Giant
Reger – Maximum Reger / Max Reger: The Last Giant (2016) I’ve never seen a boxed DVD set of this scope and scholarship for any classical composer. Professor Susanne Popp, Bernhard Haas, Ira Levin, Jürgen Schaarwächter, Aris Quartett, Frauke May, Marcus Becker, Rudolf Meister, Andrew Brownell, Oliver Kern, et al. Director. Will Fraser; Studio: Fugue State Films 011. 6 DVDs. [2016]. Run Time: 900 minutes Video: Widescreen Audio: Dolby, NTSC, Stereo Subtitles: English, German Extras: None Rating: ****½ My friend Alex is a Facebook fiend. She loves devising word games to play with her followers. For one of them she issued this challenge: “Ask me what my ‘top five’ are for any subject and I’ll answer it!” Her friends went crazy issuing requests and she had a great time responding. I couldn’t resist so I typed: “Your top five compositions by Max Reger.” I should mention that Alex is a composer and a professor of music. Her work is dizzyingly eclectic and often nods respectfully to music of the past. What was her response? Nothing. Zilch. Ask any lover of classical music to name one composition by Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger (1873–1916) and they too may not answer you. […]
Editorial for November 2016
The complete pipe organ works of Max Reger in hi-res stereo, surround & binaural (17 SACDs) is the November free drawing here, as furnished by Cybele Records. It comes with a complete bound book and an interview with the organist. We reviewed it here. All you need to do is click on the Register To Win banner on the Home Page and fill out our simple form. We will list below the winner of the November drawing in early December. EDITORIAL AUDIOPHILE AUDITION began as a local program in San Francisco and then in 1985 as a weekly national radio series hosted by John Sunier, and aired for 13½ years on up to 200 public radio and commercial stations. In September 1998 its web site for program listings was expanded to this free Internet publication. November 2016 is our 212th issue! All disc reviews are added thru the month as written and received, often daily, amounting to nearly 100 a month. The Home Page lists the latest published reviews. Vinyls, Pure Audio Blu-rays and other hi-res formats are included in the SACD/Hi-Res Section. We are staying with physical discs rather than downloads. The site has been redesigned and improved. Please […]
Erik Then-Bergh – The Complete Electrola and Deutsche Grammophone Recordings, 1938-1958 = Works of HANDEL, BEETHOVEN, BACH, SCHUMANN, CHOPIN & REGER – APR (2-CDs)
Mark Obert-Thorn and Appian Records restore Erik Then-Bergh to prominence. Erik Then-Bergh – The Complete Electrola and Deutsche Grammophone Recordings, 1938-1958 = HANDEL: Suite No. 4 in e minor; BACH (arr. BUSONI): Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in d, BWV 1004; BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101; Bagatelles, Op. 33: Nos. 1 and 4; SCHUMANN: Piano Sonata No. 2 in g, Op. 22; CHOPIN: Nocturne in B Major, Op. 62, No. 1; REGER: Silhouettes, Op. 53: Nos. 2 and 6; Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Telemann, Op. 134; Piano Concerto in f, Op. 114 – Erik Then-Bergh, p./ Southwest Radio Orch., Baden-Baden/ Hans Rosbaud – APR 6021 (2-CDs) 77:39, 76:52 (10/28/16) [Distr. by Naxos] ****: Erik Then-Bergh (1916-1982) for years has remained a “singular success,” his reputation having embraced one recorded work, the Piano Concerto of Max Reger – born, co-incidentally, the same 1916. Then-Bergh, however, deserves a wider acknowledgment of his singular powers – as several YouTube videos attest – as both performer and pedagogue, a long-awaited homage that Mark Obert-Thorn has managed to achieve. Erik Then-Bergh received his first piano lessons at the age of five from his father and a further […]
MAX REGER: The Complete Organ Works – Martin Schmeding, organ – Cybele 17 SACD set
The complete organ works of Reger on 16 binaural SACDs plus an interview. MAX REGER: The Complete Organ Works [TrackList follows] – Martin Schmeding, at 13 different historic Sauer & Walcker organs, Dom zu Berlin, Wiesbaden & elsewhere – 17 multichannel (binaural stereo channels) SACDs in gold-stamped collectors’ box – Vol. 17 is interview of organist (in German) by Mirjam Wiesemann – TT: 19 hrs., 24:36 + 172-p. colored booklet – (4/12/16) *****: This is a first. Not only does the exceptional package contain all of the astonishingly complex organ works of Max Reger, but in addition to a fine 5.1-channel hi-res SACD layer, plus a standard CD stereo layer (as all hybrid SACDs now have), there is also a two-channel binaural layer of all the works, for listening on a pair of good headphones. Never mind the interview if you don’t understand German. The 3D artificial head recording technique used by Cybele puts the listener (if your hearing fairly closely matches that of the headphones) almost directly on the scene as if we was in front of the organs being heard. A dummy head with sensitive microphones where the ears are is used, and the phase relationships are therefore […]
MAX REGER: Comp. Works for Clarinet & Piano – Robert Oberaigner, clar./Michael Schöch, p. – MD&G Scenes
Another nice addition to the growing Reger renaissance. MAX REGER “Complete works for Clarinet and Piano” = MAX REGER: Sonata No.1 in A-flat major, Op.49/1; Sonata No. 2 in F-sharp minor, Op. 49/2; Sonata in B-flat major, Op.107; Tarantella; Album Leaf – Robert Oberaigner, clarinet/Michael Schöch, p. – MD&G Scene MDG 903 1963-6, 79:33 (8/05/16) [Distr. by E1] ****: This is the third album of Max Reger’s complete music for clarinet and piano I have seen and heard these past six months. Clearly the somewhat obscure and somewhat irascible early twentieth century German composer is having a bit of a Renaissance; including recent releases of his choral and organ output and some very rare orchestral music. This is good because Reger was a very fine and somewhat daring composer whose main barriers to further renown were his own criticism of his works; hiding and sequestering them in some cases for years and that documented prickly personality. Interestingly, his clarinet music was always among his best known output; of those many works, the two sonatas written as the opus forty-nine pair are the best known and most often performed. This is for good reason. Those two works are masterpieces of swirling […]
MAX REGER: “The Chorale Fantasies”; HEINRICH REIMANN: Chorale Fantasy – Balázs Szabó, org. – MDG (2 discs)
MAX REGER: “The Chorale Fantasies”; HEINRICH REIMANN: Chorale Fantasy, Op. 25 – Balázs Szabó, organ – MDG 920 1945-6, (2 multichannel SACDs) [Distr. by E1], TT: 150:15 (2/26/16) [also 2+2+2] ***: Dedicated performances appeal mostly to a niche market, I think. Max Reger (1873-1916) was a composer who came to some prominence after Brahms and at the same time as such ‘larger-than-life’ figures as Wagner and Mahler. It is the very nature of his music and, by some accounts, his personality to be trapped in a hard to define niche somewhere in between all the other names and sounds surrounding him. Not that Reger was not an innovator, perhaps even a genius, for some of his melodic flow and harmonic progressions are quite daring; even hard to follow and murky in places. Just a listen to most of the swirling chromatic undercarriage in the Opus 27 Fantasy on Ein Feste Burg ist unser Gott or the similarly structured Opus 40, Straf mich nicht un deinem Zorn, are good examples. Like most church organists and composers writing for that medium, Reger takes his inspiration from some of the great Lutheran hymns of the post-Reformation. (Almost all listeners would recognize ‘A Mighty […]
HERMANN SUTER: Symphony in D Minor; WERNER WEHRLI: ‘Chilbizite’ for Orchestra – Aargauer Sym. Orch./ Douglas Bostock – Musiques Suisses
A pair of Swiss Late Romantic composers; music that deserves to be heard.
SIGURD ISLANDSMOEN: Requiem; Kristiansand Symfoniorkester/Det Norkse Solistkor/soloists/ Terje Boye Hansen – 2L Records
Stirring work receives a bit of a revival.
MAX REGER Works – Consortium/ Andrew-John Smith – Hyperion
Wait! Don’t run! This might be the backdoor you have been looking for to secretly discover the much-maligned composer’s music.
Stereotypes Audio
Cembal d’amour
Pure Pleasure / Speakers Corner
Cedille
