Reger Bach Variations, arr. Levin

[ewk]

A while ago, when I was really into the Reger sets of variations, I always thought it was a shame Reger hat not made orchestral versions of more of his variation sets.

At least for one of the sets – some say his finest – someone has tried to compensate for that:

Max Reger, arr. Ira Levin: Variations and Fugue on a theme of J. S. Bach, available at Youtube, played by the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt (the other Frankfurt, i.e. Frankfurt an der Oder at the German-Polish Border). The Naxos booklet is available here, the preface of the published score is to be found here.

While it does, in my opinion, not match Reger's orchestral versions of the Hiller and Mozart variations, I think it is still very enjoyable and in many places it sounds like genuine Reger. It is not a complete orchestration of all the variations – Levin says he has applied the same approach like Reger when shortening and rearranging the order of the Beethoven variations for his own orchestration.

Has anyone come across this, how do you judge Levin's work?

Best wishes, ewk

[Alan Howe]

This is the recording concerned:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8668508--max-reger-four-tone-poems-after-arnold-bocklin