Max Reger

Max Reger

Max Reger is a German composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He is born in Brand, Germany, and lives from 1873 to 1916. He works within classical and romantic classical traditions, and is often associated with organ music, neo-baroque writing and large-scale contrapuntal forms.

Early life and training

Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger studies music in Munich and Wiesbaden with Hugo Riemann. In 1901 he settles in Munich, where he teaches organ and composition.

Career

From 1907 Reger works in Leipzig. He serves as music director of the university there until 1908, and then as professor of composition at the conservatoire until his death. He is also active internationally as a conductor and pianist. Among his students are Joseph Haas and George Szell.

From 1911 he conducts the court orchestra at Meiningen until it is disbanded in 1914, after which he moves to Jena. He dies of a heart attack in Leipzig.

Music and style

Reger has a composing career of little more than 20 years, but produces a very large body of work in many genres, usually in abstract forms. Opera is a notable exception. He is strongly associated with fugue and variation form, and he describes his relationship to fugue in intensely personal terms. His music often combines classical structures with the extended harmonies of Liszt and Wagner and the counterpoint of Bach.

His best-known orchestral work is the Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Mozart, which is based on the opening theme of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in K. 331. He also writes a substantial amount of organ music, including the Fantasy and Fugue on BACH, which is regarded as one of the most demanding works in the organ repertoire. Other well-remembered orchestral works include the Hiller Variations and Mozart Variations. His chamber output includes lighter-textured trios, and his late piano and two-piano music places him in the central German tradition associated with Brahms.

Reger sees himself as part of the tradition of Beethoven and Brahms, and supports absolute music. His works are not revolutionary, but often return to classical and baroque models such as the fugue and continuo, while also making use of dense thematic development and complex counterpoint.