Max Reger Orchestral Edition

[adriano]

This highly recommendable low price re-issue is a monument!

https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/de/cat/4799983

At last those excellent Koch-Schwann recordings (made between 1980 and 1993) are available again! A 12-CD box with a thin booklet, but today, there is enough internet info on Max Reger.

[M. Yaskovsky]

And a very affordable price https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/max-reger-orchestral-edition/hnum/8137049
I've already listened to 3 of the 12 CD's and I must say I'm warming to Reger more and more. There's some tricky, near out of tune, trumpet playing in the Hiller and Mozart Variations or my ears are belieing me. Alas the Symphonischer Prolog zu einer Tragödie op. 108 has some distortion in the loudest passages. But. totally recommended!

[adriano]

As excellent alternatives for Böcklin-Suite, Symphonischer Prolog, Piano Concerto, Variations etc. I recommend Leif Segerstam's wonderful 3-CD set on BIS. The earlier 11-CD Reger Collection from Edel Classics (reissued by Brilliant, but augmented by organ, chamber pieces and motets) is also very good; there are a. o. pieces conducted by Blomsted and Suitner. The Symphonic Prologue, however, has been recorded in this case with a cut, which Reger himself recommended, but intelligent conductors hopefully won't accept anymore today :-)
The Warner 8-CD collection is a strange choice; however, it contains also those early and excellent recordings by Keilberth - which can be found alone also on a Teldec 2-CD set.
To mention what I also have in my collection: a mono 2-CD set by cpo, with some Reger recordings from Radio Bremen, all conducted by Hermann Scherchen.
Last but not least there is a splendid Orfeo CD from 1990 (conductor: Gerd Albrecht), with orchestral songs by Reger, including his wonderful "Requiem" and "Der Einsiedler" for baritone, choir and orchestra, which were available in the 1970s with Max van Egmond on a Telefunken LP (my very first Reger LP).
Keilberth recorded the Böcklin-Suite" already in 1942-3 on Capitol 78s (German Philharmonic Orchestra of Prague). This version has two minimal cuts in the "Island of the Death" movement - and is fabulously conducted. I have made a private transfer, but suppose it is easily available on some historical label(s). A pity Keilberth never recorded it in full later on.
I had the honour of sitting near Keilberth's podium during his Basel rehearsals of this piece; that must have been around 1969 - and was, for me, an unforgettable experience. Every time the maestro would come to Switzerland, he would call me to say where he rehearsed and invite me "to learn something". Then he always added: "Since I know you don't have enough money, I've already bought the pocket scores". If I am not wrong, in the same Basle program there was Cherubini's "Anacreon" Overture arranged/edited by Wagner and a Beethoven Symphony.
And, as a dessert, to those who don't know this already, I mention what Reger once wrote to an author who had written a negative review of one of his works: "Dear Sir, I am sitting in my toilet, holding the paper with your review in front of me - but very soon I will have it behind."

[JimL]

I have the Reger quote as follows (regarding his 3rd SQ, IIRC.) "Dear Sir: I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. Soon, it will be behind me." Perhaps the original was a little more explicit, as your translation was, but I prefer the allusive nature of this one.

[eschiss1]

hrm, I always thought it was in reference to his Op.72 violin sonata. Well...

According to Wikipedia: Rudolf Louis, on his review of the premiere, 2/2/1906, of the sinfonietta in A op.90.

[adriano]

I just found it (I quoted it from memory):
The original German wording is "Ich sitze im kleinsten Raum des Hauses. Ihre Kritik habe ich vor mir. Bald werde ich sie hinter mir haben".
("I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review in front of me. Soon I will have it behind me" - which is a double meaning, for: "I have just been through it"  - and also "I hold it -literally- behind me".)
This is, apparently, after a Munich performance of one of his works, but most biographies and articles do not know which one.

[JimL]

 

[Alan Howe]

...all of which seems to have snuffed out any further discussion of this fine box set. Reger, of course, is not everyone's cup of tea, or stein of beer for that matter, but there are some absolute gems in this collection. I started with CD1, containing the Symphonic Prologue to a Tragedy, a 34-minute Leviathan of a piece which knocked me for six such is its magnificence, followed by the two Romances for Violin and Orchestra Op.50 which are like the slow movements of a pair of fabulous lost violin concertos. And that's just the first of 12 CDs!

[eschiss1]

I've adored Op.108 for years, though I hope no one makes the mistake of trying to follow it with my notes.

[Alan Howe]

Oh, I don't know - why not?

[eschiss1]

7 years belatedly, about the "smallest room" letter by Reger, I think I may have an answer. See this interesting brief article with a letter to Harold Schonberg by Frieda Weiler, dedicatee of Karg-Elert's Haidebilder, still alive at age 89 in the early 1970s and able to shine some light on the topic.