Reimann Archive

MAX REGER: “The Chorale Fantasies”; HEINRICH REIMANN: Chorale Fantasy – Balázs Szabó, org. – MDG (2 discs)

by Audiophile Audition | Apr 23, 2016 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews

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 […]