The 12 Lieder op. 51 were composed in August 1900 and are dedicated to Hugo Wolf, a composer Reger identified with due to his stylistic innovations in the Lied genre.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Reger, a modern person, preferred setting contemporary poems because he felt the greatness of past poets' works made it seem like 'madness' to add anything more.
Interpretation
The performers, Markus Schäfer and Ernst Breidenbach, are a long-standing Lied duo and Reger enthusiasts who aimed to present the songs in their original published context.
Performer Biography
Markus Schäfer, the tenor on this recording, is a voice professor at the Hochschule für Musik in Hannover and has a wide-ranging repertoire, including early music and world premieres.
Composer Biography
Max Reger, the composer, wrote over three hundred Lieder with piano accompaniment, a number that surpasses those by Richard Strauss, Johannes Brahms, Arnold Schönberg, or Hans Pfitzner.
Compositional Technique
Reger's Lieder, particularly in his 'most advanced and relentless works' (Op. 70-75), push the complexity of musical parameters to an extreme, exploring the boundaries of tonality.
Composition History
For his 17 Gesänge op. 70, Reger used poems from the contemporary periodical Die Gesellschaft, as well as folk song texts and a poem by Eduard Mörike, a poet famously set by Hugo Wolf.
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