The Romantic Piano Concerto, Vol. 61

[eschiss1]

Haven't read Spinoza in awhile (Wittgenstein somewhat more recently though) but agree about Reger. About quite a lot of Reger (then again, have said so before.)

(Weather or not, we -are- having a picnic.)

[FBerwald]

Thanks... Peter.  I'll weather in my whether in the future [didn't even realize I was doing it  ] As for Spinoza I once tried his Ethics. Felt like I was being thrown against a brick wall repeatedly. Which is the same way I feel about Reger. I remember listening to his Piano Concerto and telling myself "... this is a transition passage. It's going to start now." After about 10 min's I realised that for me Reger would almost always be a series of passages that never get anywhere [same as Bruchner! except his later symphonies!] Anyway the point of this whole discussion was that this is MY opinion. Just that. We are all free to choose what we like. I just wish we'd relax the rules a little bit.. then we would get a recording of Hertz's Piano Concerto with Chorus [2 or 6?] or even Holbrooke's Ship's Symphony. 
Back to the RPC 61. I haven't listened to it yet but am sure that I will like the Dreyschock at the very least. [I so thoroughly enjoyed his concerto.] The RPC Vol. 60 has become another fav. but what I'm really looking forward to is Vol 62  - Gounod!

[Mark Thomas]

a series of passages that never get anywhere [same as Bruckner!

My word, you're brave. Stand by for some shelling!

am sure that I will like the Dreyschock at the very least. [I so thoroughly enjoyed his concerto.]

IMHO his Konzertstuck is a much more powerful and tautly constructed piece than the Piano Concerto, so you should love it.

[FBerwald]

a series of passages that never get anywhere [same as Bruckner!

My word, you're brave. Stand by for some shelling!

Actually I said " for ME Reger would almost always be a series of passages that never get anywhere". Just me.... little old me!    I hope I don't have to invest in a bulletproof Vest!

[LateRomantic75]

a series of passages that never get anywhere [same as Bruckner!

My word, you're brave. Stand by for some shelling!

I shall lead the bombardment as an avid Brucknerian!

[Alan Howe]

I'm not an avid Regerian, but his VC and Böcklin Tone Poems are pieces I'd dive back into my house to retrieve if ever the proverbial fire were to hit...

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Don't worry, FBerwald - just blow raspberries back at 'em. I happen to enjoy Reger very much, but I wouldn't expect everyone to share that enjoyment. The world would be a very dull place if we all converged in our preferences.

Might cheer you up if I confess there's a certain composer who often flits through various threads here who I've decided I really don't like at all. It is not so much the case that he doesn't 'do' anything for me. Far worse than that, I'd probably cover up my ears and run screaming from the concert hall. I find his music clumsy, ponderous, bombastic, usually far too loud and always far too long. Can't understand at all why nearly everyone else regards him in profound awe and veneration. Your view of Reger is probably quite mild compared to mine of ..... And nope, not going to reveal the name for nearly everyone else would wish disease, famine, pestilence, and eternal fire and brimstone on me. Along with a few locusts and a plague or two.

Stand firm against the hordes of Regerians and don't think for a moment that your musical judgments are somehow defective. Now perhaps back to the safer world of The Romantic Piano Concerto Vol. 61.

[Mark Thomas]

a certain composer

Mahler? 

[eschiss1]

Actually, I thought he meant Beethoven.
(And honi soit qui mal y pense!- is that the expression? (hrm- probably not. but it's fun to say.) - if one takes that to reflect my view of Ludwig... !?! )
Waiting for Spindler's symphonies--

Eric

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Heavens, Eric! Far more likely for the earth to reverse its orbit than for my love of Beethoven to expire.

And no, Mark, not Mahler. Though I do confess that, for me, he is a once in a while composer, and only in the flesh. (I'm psychologically quite incapable of sitting in my armchair in my own music room listening to, say, the C minor symphony. Other than the songs the only Mahler I could tolerate in less than a concert hall would be his arrangement for string orchestra of Schubert's D810).

[FBerwald]

Oh come on petershott! don't keep us hanging. Who is it? I wont mind knowing. I have a feeling it might be Medtner or Scharwenka! I am guilty of liking many a composers that people might frown upon. eg. I like Waldteufel better than Strauss II on most days! Let the shelling begin.

[LateRomantic75]

Wait, hold on.....I get attacked for criticizing a composer as minor as Dohler who composed for the salon, but no one even counters FBerwald's statement about Bruckner who was a great and influential composer who composed for God. I'm not trying to stir up trouble, but I don't think this seems fair.

[Mark Thomas]

LateRomantic - you weren't "attacked", people just disagreed with your view. There's a very big difference.

[eschiss1]

I didn't think I was attacking your view of Dohler. I don't know enough about Döhler yet, mostly a couple of brief once-popular piano pieces, I believe... ... I should assume you mean someone else, i think... or your threshold for attack is way low.

As to Reger, though, as I tried (and always fail) to explain - once in my 2005 preface to his Symphonic Prologue for MPH - I think what he was trying to do (I recall reading something like this; and it made sense...) - was to adapt sonata form- a way of articulating the dramatic contrast between groups of thematic material basically in different keys - to the expanded harmonic system "inherited from" Wagner etc. in the late 19th century.  So you used to have (A, B, etc. are groups of themes in different keys, though they may briefly leave the key, as with Haydn- later on less briefly, as with Schubert or even Beethoven or later, Bruckner- well, let's not go that late- but usually only to return to the key of the section...)

A-Ao (transition) - B - Bo - (exposition; might be repeated)
development (section whose job is to take you back to the main key. it might use dramatic and rhythmic variation of themes from the exposition to do this, but that's not essential- see many examples by Mozart and his contemporaries who didn't seem to think it was necessary...) --
return to exposition (often but not always fairly dramatic here!) - recapitulation (A-Ao-B-Bo often more or less exactly repeated with slight changes - but only "often"; lots of exceptions. Maybe not oddly, Reger who takes liberties with so much else is going to be at his most exact in this section. It's -all- the matters of drama, contrast, tension and relief, after all, and knowing when to apply which... not joking at all about that.)

So for contrast between tonal regions, I guessed that he substituted instead contrast between kinds of activity- or... something- to push the drama forward in his sonata structures. Though Griffiths (was it?) was probably still right that Reger's music, despite all of its (I think!- and with my caveats etc. about the chamber music being rather better...) fine points- being more a statement of the problem, than its solution. After which he starts talking about another composer as a very natural segue, and here most people, though not me, will think we will have left the forum orbit, so I will leave off there. ;^)


(In a typical effective sonata, A and B are tonally fairly stable regions (Ao and Bo less so, development often very much heckno (technical term, of course.)) In a middle-period Reger work (from around 1902? - 2nd piano quintet and first string trio to around 1910 or so, not that long in all really, though he wrote quite a lot of chamber music in that time (not counting solo piano or solo organ music)-

#2nd piano quintet Op.64 (1901-2)
#Violin Sonata No.4 Op.72 (1903. Scandal over this resulted in a sort-of infamous bathroom incident, I gather...)
#String quartet in D minor, Op.74 (one of those hour-long quartets. 1903-4.)
#Op.77a & b: Serenade no.1 in D , String Trio no.1 in A minor (1904)
#Op.78: Cello sonata no.3 in F 1904
#Op.84: Violin sonata no.5 in F# minor 1905
#Op.91: Solo sonatas for violin (1905)
#Op.93: Suite im alten styl in F for violin and piano
#Op.102: Piano trio no.2 in E minor (1908)
#Op.103a: Violin suite (1908)
#Op.103b: Violin sonatinas (1909) (Violin sonatas 6 & 7)
#Op.107: Clarinet sonata no.3
#Op.109: String quartet no.4 in E-flat
#Op.113: Piano quartet no.1 (1910)
#OP.116: Cello sonata no.4 (1910)
#Op.118: String sextet (1910)
#Op.121: String quartet no.5 (1911)
#Op.122: Violin sonata no.8 (1911)
Hrm. Things seem to start mellowing out relatively speaking and a little after this, maybe (harmonically, in speed of, etc.; his tendency of writing in rapid unisons is no longer as prominent - as much though he does open op.139 (Violin sonata no.9) with one - etc. etc.)

(The Joachim Quartet's nla disc of the 4th and 5th string quartets always seemed to me a good way to get into his music, even though the music there can be very busy- but also terrifically hymnic and soulful in the slow movements, and sympathetically desperate, angry/sad in the finale of the 5th (with the slow almost-coda preceding the fast final page). Eh. Apologies for digression.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Whooooooshhhh! Thank you so much for this, Eric. What a potentially illuminating piece. I'm no musicologist, and thus have to work hard to grasp all the details (and to test out my understanding by repeated visits to the CD player to listen bits of music - fortunately I have a metre or so of Reger, and especially the chamber music).

Early days yet (or rather hours), but the gist of what you're claiming makes a very great amount of sense. It explains, for one thing, why many Reger pieces don't admit of any easy or relatively straightforward 'access'. First time I listened to the Violin Concerto, for example, I was baffled, couldn't easily follow what was going on, and then after 50 minutes or so it all finished - and just why at that point? The same is true of the String Quartets (and especially the Op. 118 String Sextet surely?) All these works require you surrender your expectations (prejudices?), submit to the music a few times, and then once it has got under the skin, glory in the stuff. (And I do think 'glory' is exactly the right word here.)

I think you've helped a great deal in my understanding of these matters. The 'difficulty' in accessing or getting into many of Reger's works initially is to do with the absence of (in crude non-theoretical language) stops, rests, sections and so on. That's not his way of organising his material. Except in obvious counter-examples such as the Op. 100 Hiller Variations.

Analogy. There are some speakers / lecturers who are especially popular with first year students, and their success is due to the way they lay out material. Clear, easily identifiable paragraphs / sections, emphasisng or underlining of sub-conclusions, summing up, drawing deep breath, make sure audience has got the point, clear explanations of how those sub-conclusions then motivate the next section..... Maybe arrange all the key bullet points on an O/H projector (always hated doing that!). Crudely speaking, you can easily hear the analogue of that in a classical sonata form.

But not Reger. Your suggestion of the music being organised around different 'types of activity' immediately makes sense. When I read your preface to the Symphonic Prologue I was conscious of several light bulbs being illuminated in my otherwise dense head. My first guess is that you've thrown me a valuable key to unlocking Reger and enabling me to explain to myself why I find his music so powerful and compelling. Thank you!

Much more frivolously: do sometime explain the bathroom incident relating to the Op. 72 Violin Sonata - that's something I've never encountered before! (In the literature there are vast numbers of hilarious Reger stories, often at the edge of sheer vulgarity. One of my favourites was after the first Meiningen performance of his Bocklin Tone Poems Op. 128 when Princess Marie of Saxe-Meiningen asked him "Good heavens, Herr Hoffrat, did all the bassoons make those sounds with their mouths?" to which Reger replied - looking her straight in the eye - "I sincerely hope so, your Highness").

I suspect I've a week or so coming up of revisiting Reger chamber works now equipped with your potentially illuminating suggestions. Thank you! I think we're lucky and privileged to have you as an especially active member of this forum (no blushes!)