Demonstrating great productivity, Reger wrote a large number of works in most musical genres, but today he is mainly remembered for his organ music and certain chamber works – his orchestral works often neglected. Considered by many contemporary composers as one of the last ‘greats’, this box set is comprised of three separate discs that were previously released to critical acclaim.
“Everything that is included is substantial...the hugely impressive Symphonic Prologue to a Tragedy is dark, brooding and intricately wrought. It's invaluable to have these works available in such lucid, well-played and committed performances.” --The Guardian, 27th March 2014 ****
“Everything that is included is substantial...the hugely impressive Symphonic Prologue to a Tragedy is dark, brooding and intricately wrought. It's invaluable to have these works available in such lucid, well-played and committed performances.” --The Guardian, 27th March 2014 ****
Today, almost a century after the untimely death of Max Reger (in 1916, aged 43), it is hard to imagine the position he once occupied on the musical scene. Paul Hindemith called him ‘the last great musical giant’, and Schoenberg described his music as ‘rich and new’ and counted him as one of the modern composers from whom he had learned the most. In Russia Reger was valued so highly that a memorial concert was held in St Petersburg a week after he died – even though Russia and Germany were then at war.
Extremely productive, he wrote a large number of works in most musical genres, but today he is mainly remembered for his organ music and certain chamber works. Reger’s output for orchestra includes some twenty compositions, but very few of these appear with any regularity in the concert programmes of orchestras around the world. The exception is the Mozart Variations, Op.132, partly due to the perennial popularity of Mozart’s theme itself, from the Piano Sonata in A major, K 331. This box set, with three discs originally released separately to critical acclaim, includes the Op.132 variations, but also the less well-known Beethoven Variations, on a theme from the last of the Op.119 Bagatelles.
All of the works in the set demonstrate in various ways Reger's great skills as an orchestrator, from the light and affectionate Suite im alten Stil to the grandiose sonorities of the half-hour long Symphonic Prologue to a Tragedy. Conducting the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra in these taxing scores, Leif Segerstam impressed reviewers with his ‘visionary advocacy’ of the Four Böcklin Tone Poems and the ‘alluring transparency’ of his Mozart Variations (BBC Music Magazine), while the orchestra was commended for its ‘fullblooded playing' (Classic CD).
Extremely productive, he wrote a large number of works in most musical genres, but today he is mainly remembered for his organ music and certain chamber works. Reger’s output for orchestra includes some twenty compositions, but very few of these appear with any regularity in the concert programmes of orchestras around the world. The exception is the Mozart Variations, Op.132, partly due to the perennial popularity of Mozart’s theme itself, from the Piano Sonata in A major, K 331. This box set, with three discs originally released separately to critical acclaim, includes the Op.132 variations, but also the less well-known Beethoven Variations, on a theme from the last of the Op.119 Bagatelles.
All of the works in the set demonstrate in various ways Reger's great skills as an orchestrator, from the light and affectionate Suite im alten Stil to the grandiose sonorities of the half-hour long Symphonic Prologue to a Tragedy. Conducting the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra in these taxing scores, Leif Segerstam impressed reviewers with his ‘visionary advocacy’ of the Four Böcklin Tone Poems and the ‘alluring transparency’ of his Mozart Variations (BBC Music Magazine), while the orchestra was commended for its ‘fullblooded playing' (Classic CD).
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