Reger: Clarinet Quintet, Op. 146 / String Quartet, Op. 109

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Cat No: 8554510

Release Date: 12 January 2000

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 636943451021

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: REGER

Description
Max Reger (1873-1916)Clarinet Quintet in Amajor, Op.146 String Quartet in Eflat major, Op.109Max Reger owed his early musical leanings to the example and enthusiasmof his father, a schoolmaster and amateur musician, and his early training tothe town organist of Weiden, Adalbert Lindner. Reger was born in 1873 at Brandin the Upper Palatinate of Bavaria. The following year the family moved toWeiden and it was there that he spent his childhood and adolescence, entering acourse of teacher training. Lindner had sent examples of Reger's early work asa composer to Hugo Riemann, who accepted him as a pupil, initially atSondershausen and then, as his own assistant, in Wiesbaden. Military service,which affected Reger's health and spirits, was followed by a period at homewith his parents in Weiden and a continuing series of compositions, inparticular for the organ. These included a monumental series of choralefantasias and other works, often, it seems, designed to challenge the techniqueof his friend Karl Straube, a noted performer of Reger's organ music.In 1901 Reger moved to Munich, where he spent the next six years. Hisposition in musical life was not without difficulty, since he was seen as achampion of absolute music and as hostile, at this time, to programme music,represented by the successors of Liszt and Wagner. He was, however, successfulas a pianist and was gradually able to find an audience for his compositions.The period in Munich saw the writing of his Sinfonietta, of chambermusic, and of his important Variations and Fugue on a Theme of J.S. Bach forpiano, and his Variation, and Fugue on a Theme of Beethoven, the lattersubsequently orchestrated. In 1907 he took up an appointment as Royal SaxonProfessor of Composition at the Conservatory of Leipzig. His music now found astill wider international audience, supported by his own distinction as aperformer, with concert appearances in London, St Petersburg, the Netherlandsand Austria, and throughout Germany.The year 1911 brought an invitation from the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen toaccept the position of conductor of the court orchestra, an ensembleestablished by Hans von B??low and conducted, at the outset of his career, byRichard Strauss. Reger held this position until the death of the Duke,resigning a few days later, on 1st July 1914. With the outbreak of war theorchestra was disbanded. He spent his final years based in Jena, but continuedhis activities as a composer and as a concert performer. He died in Leipzig inMay 1916 on his way back from a concert tour of the Netherlands.Reger was a prolific composer, continuing the tradition of Bach, Mozartand the great German composers of the nineteenth century, with a technicalmastery and command of harmonic and contrapuntal resources that allowed him toexpand the bounds of tonality in chromatic exploration. His organ compositions,in particular, represent a very significant addition to the repertoire of theinstrument. He left an equally extensive body of chamb
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