Reger: Piano Music - Bach Variations, Telemann Variations etc.
7/28/2023, 46 Tracks, 1:13:51
Featuring
Marc-André Hamelin
Max Reger
Did you know?
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Critical Reception
Max Reger's music was often the target of cynical critics, with one reviewer in 1910 describing his Piano Concerto as suffering from "asthmatic invention and dropsical swelling of fracture."
Composition History
Reger's Variations and Fugue on a theme of Johann Sebastian Bach, Op. 81, dates from the summer of 1904, a period that also saw the births of James Joyce's Ulysses and Delius's Koanga.
Composer Biography
Max Reger's early music studies with Hugo Riemann, a leading music theorist, focused heavily on the music of Bach and Brahms, with an emphasis on musical form.
Composer Biography
Max Reger, the composer, died at just forty-three years old in a Leipzig hotel room in 1916, with his spectacles still on his nose and a newspaper in his hands.
Composer's Artistic Vision
The author of the booklet views Max Reger as the "missing link" between Brahms, known for being warm-hearted and highly contrapuntal, and Bruckner, known for long-spun melodies and epic scale.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Reger was known for his love of complex contrapuntal computations, unexpected modulations, and sudden shifts in focus or color, placing him second only to Bach in his imaginative use of fugal counterpoint.
Compositional Technique
The theme for Reger's Variations and Fugue on a theme of Georg Philipp Telemann, Op. 134, is taken from a Suite for two oboes and strings that Telemann composed around 1733 as part of his Tafelmusik.
