Max Reger

Few composers approach Schubert in having written so much music across so short a lifespan, but Max Reger wrote several hundred pieces in just under three decades, many with several movements, and in an idiom combining Bach-like textural intricacy with Brahmsian harmonic richness. He was born in Brand in 1873. A visit to Bayreuth aged 15 sparked his creative urge, and he studied composition while also pursuing careers as a pianist and organist. Based in Leipzig from 1907, he wrote in all major genres except opera. His outputs for organ, likely the most important after Bach, and piano are matched by those for chamber forces (such as five string quartets and nine violin sonatas) and choir. Reger’s sets of orchestral variations on themes by Hiller (1907) and Mozart (1914) duly entered the repertoire. Adolf Busch and Rudolf Serkin championed his concertos for violin (1908) and piano (1910), and he was highly regarded by Strauss and Schoenberg. Next to the sombre intensity of his Symphonic Prologue to a Tragedy (1908) or his monumental choral setting, Psalm 100 (1909), works such as A Romantic Suite (1912) and Four Tone Poems after Böcklin (1913) confirm a sensuous and imaginative response, while the autumnal eloquence of his Clarinet Quintet (1916) makes it a worthy successor to those by Mozart and Brahms. Reger’s workaholism gradually took its toll, and he died of heart failure in Leipzig in 191