23rd December 2024, December Update 2024
Conclusion of Module II Songs and Choral Works
With the publication of the two edition volumes II/5 and II/10, Reger's vocal works are now available in a complete hybrid edition.
With the publication of the two edition volumes II/5 - Lieder V and II/10 - Werke für Männer-, Frauen- und Kinderchor and the RWA Online December update 2024, the Reger-Werkausgabe completes more than 8 years of work on the second module - Lieder und Chorwerke. This provides performers, scholars and public with a complete hybrid edition and documentation of Reger's vocal works. The 11 edition volumes contain a total of 607 individual compositions, spread over 162 works or collections of works.
1. Volume II/5 – Songs V
The fifth and final volume of the Songs and Choral Works section comprises, in chronological order, the songs for one or two voices and piano written between June 1906 and May 1915 as well as the piano versions/piano reductions for two hands of the orchestral songs An die Hoffnung op. 124 and Hymn of Love op. 136.
From 1907, Reger continued the series of his Schlichten Weisen op. 76, to which he was contractually obliged by his main publisher at the time, Lauterbach & Kuhn. By 1912, the volumes III, IV, V and VI had been published, completing the opus, which then comprised a total of 60 songs. The songs were intended to be comprehensible and–as requested by the publisher–made concessions to the technical ability of the performers. However, Reger did not renounce his unmistakable personal style. Reger wrote the last two volumes of Schlichte Weisen, two collections of children's songs, for his daughters Christa and Lotti. Following on from this, the Five new children's songs op. 142 are addressed to the godchildren Hedwig and Max Martin Stein.
Until 1909, Reger remained bound to publisher Lauterbach & Kuhn, which eventually became the property of Bote & Bock, Berlin. However, he also established contacts with other publishers, to whom he also offered Lieder. 1906 he divided a demanding collection of Lieder into the two operas 97 and 98 in order to be able to offer a work not only to Lauterbach & Kuhn but also to the publisher N. Simrock as well. The business relationship with C.F. Peters developed into a friendship with the publisher Henri Hinrichsen. Reger composed the lullaby WoO VII/42 for the birth of his son Walter. The Three Duets op. 111a for soprano and alto, Reger's only contributions for this instrumentation after his early Opus 14, were published in the first year of his publishing relationship with Bote & Bock. In addition, smaller contributions were written for specific occasions: as a commissioned work for a song album (In der Frühe WoO VII/41), for popular “Hausmusik” periodicals (Der Dieb WoO VII/38, Der Maien ist gestorben WoO VII/39, Abendfrieden WoO VII/40) and even for an American textbook publisher (Night Thoughts WoO V/7, see also volume II/10).
The piano versions of his two great vocal-symphonic solo works An die Hoffnung and Hymnus der Liebe were composed around the same time as the orchestral versions. The Hymn of Love was premiered in October 1917 in the version for voice and piano due to the war and was not performed in front of a large audience until a year later at the Reger Festival in Jena.
2. Volume II/10 – Works for male, women's or children's choir
This volume contains in chronological order the works by Reger for men's, women's or children's choir a cappella or with piano accompaniment written between 1898 and 1913.
In Reger's time, choral societies and especially male choirs were among the main musical institutions of cultural life. After Reger returned from Wiesbaden to Weiden in 1898, he wrote several arrangements of folk songs and original compositions for the local Liederkranz. Having moved to Munich in the meantime, he in 1904 took up a wish expressed by Kaiser Wilhelm II. that more folk songs should be sung, as an opportunity to tackle his somewhat different Songs op. 83, which he expanded 1909 and 1912 by two movements. 1909 he also took part in the general Zeppelin euphoria with a hymn (WoO VI/21; version for voice and piano see volume II/5).
Reger's few compositions for women's choir were written partly as a result of his work for the Monatschrift für Gottesdienst und kirchliche Kunst, whose (sacred) music supplements enabled him to reach a wide audience, and partly at the suggestion of a Hamburg ensemble. The fact that the magazine supplements included children's choir as an alternative instrumentation may have had strategic reasons. Unusual are his two piano-accompanied contributions in the children's choir section for an American schoolbook (Night Thoughts and The Snow).
3. Growing RWA encyclopaedia and technical optimisations
With the December 2024 update, in addition to the direct information on the editions (work and edition profiles), new content has also been added to the RWA encyclopaedia. For example, information on contemporary performances of the edited works can now be viewed for the first time (see Events), which can provide information on the contexts in which Reger's songs and choral works were performed at the time.
Last but not least, RWA Online has undergone some fundamental technical revisions that noticeably improve the speed of response when using the portal. The RWA online service is now ready for the content of the third project module - Max Reger's arrangements of works by other composers - which will be added from 2025.