20th September 2023, Newly published

Songs with orchestral accompaniment

Volume II/6, published by Carus-Verlag, is now available.

>The fourth volume of the section Songs and Choral Works of the Reger-Werkausgabe (RWA) includes Max Reger's songs composed in Munich between November 1903 and July 1905. In the Achtzehn Gesänge op. 75, his most extensive song opus, Reger set classics such as Goethe and Hölderlin as well as folk song texts, but sometimes in an avant-garde manner. Songs with an expressionistic or floating tone alternate there with the humorous style. In the 30 songs of the first two collections of Schlichten Weisen op. 76, he used a simpler, "folk-song-like setting", which was in keeping with the cultural spirit of the times. The series achieved great popularity and Reger could satisfy his main publishers Lauterbach & Kuhn requests for easy-to-sell works without renouncing his personal style. The Vier Lieder op. 88 was then published not by Lauterbach & Kuhn, but by Simrock, where they were willing to refrain from "everyday taste". Contemporary critics perceived in these songs, dedicated to the mezzo-soprano Lula Mysz-Gmeiner, a stylistic shift toward an "intimate, often new tone" as well as an compositional design that is "as happy as it is subtle and original."