RWA Online Blog Reger’s orchestrations of his own songs

Reger’s orchestrations of his own songs

Christopher Grafschmidt

1.

In early April 1913, the singer Gertrud Fischer-Maretzki, who had been one of Reger’s favourite interpreters from 1905 onwards, asked him to orchestrate a Schubert song for her.1 This was subsequently followed by further such arrangements, probably on his own initiative.2 As Reger reported to the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel, he had “very often found that song performances in symphony concerts suffered greatly from the fact that conductors are not exactly the best [piano] accompanists. This ill state of affairs can be remedied by orchestrating them: then they also have no more need of dragging a grand piano onto the podium.” As for his own qualifications for such work, he referred to his experience as kapellmeister in Meiningen: “After having rehearsed with the Meiningen Court Orchestra for two winters almost daily, so to speak, and having performed many songs (solo songs!) with orchestra, I know exactly how such things are to be orchestrated.”

As a rule, all of Reger’s song orchestrations use a relatively small ensemble. He often uses only single woodwind (flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon), and never uses more than two of each (his Wiegenlied op. 43 no. 5 does not even use the bassoon). The only brass instrument he uses is the horn (three of them up to and including Mittag op. 76 no. 35, then only a single horn from Mariä Wiegenlied op. 76 no. 52 onwards). The harp is used only in Des Kindes Gebet op. 76 no. 22, which otherwise employs neither horn, double bass, nor the two timpani that are otherwise the norm for him. As for the strings, only three late orchestrated songs feature explicit divisi notation (Flieder op. 35 no. 4, Glückes genug op. 37 no. 3 and Fromm op. 62 no. 11; in the last of these, all the string parts are divisi), and in Das Dorf op. 97 no. 1 he also adds a solo violin.

2
We do not know to what extent Reger’s other arrangements (see RWA Schubert-B2 and -B3) might have resulted from recommendations by Fischer-Maretzki (“[…] in any case, send me all the songs by Schubert soon that you want to have orchestrated”, ibid.). He also approached Breitkopf & Härtel in this regard: “I am thinking of doing a few numbers every few years; in this, I should like your advice as to which Schubert songs you feel would be most suitable.” (Letter of 15 April 1913).
About this Blogpost

Authors:
Christopher Grafschmidt

Translations:
Chris Walton (en)

Date:
20th September 2023

Tags:
Module IISongsVol. II/6

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Citation

Christopher Grafschmidt: Reger’s orchestrations of his own songs, in: Reger-Werkausgabe, www.reger-werkausgabe.de/rwa_post_00031, version 3.1.0-rc3, 20th December 2024.

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