Mariä Wiegenlied op. 76 Bd. VI No. 52 (from Mariä Wiegenlied op. 76 Nr. 52)

Version for mittlere Singstimme, Orgel und Violine ad lib.

Content

Text: Martin Boelitz

Creation

Bearbeitet in Jena und/oder Chemnitz, zwischen 15. und 18. Dezember 1915

Status

–

Dedication

–

Performance medium

Middle voice; Organ; Violin

Work collection

Original work

Schlichte Weisen op. 76 Bd. VI for medium voice and piano
Other versions:
- Mariä Wiegenlied op. 76 No. 52, Version for middle voice and orchestra

Versions

1.

Reger-Werkausgabe	Bd. II/5: Lieder V, S. 179–198.
Herausgeber	Knud Breyer und Stefan König. Unter Mitarbeit von Christopher Grafschmidt und Claudia Seidl.
Verlag	Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart; Verlagsnummer: CV 52.812.
Erscheinungsdatum	Oktober 2024.
Notensatz	Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart.
Copyright	2024 by Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart and Max-Reger-Institut, Karlsruhe – CV 52.812. Vervielfältigungen jeglicher Art sind gesetzlich verboten. / Any unauthorized reproduction is prohibited by law. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. / All rights reserved.
ISMN	M-007-33910-4
ISBN	978-3-89948-463-2.

Werk

Vor einem alten Bilde

by Martin Boelitz

Also for

1. Composition and Publication

On 28 April 1912, Reger wrote as follows to Hugo Bock, the owner of Bote & Bock,: “I shall also send you a few ‘children’s songs’ again as the 2nd volume of the ‘Kinderlieder’, for which I have delightful texts”. (Letter to Bote & Bock (Hugo Bock) of 28 April 1912) He emphasised that it would be “a book of really easy songs”,(Letter to Bote & Bock (Hugo Bock) of 7 May 1912) so he explicitly intended to continue where he had left off with volume V of the Schlichte Weisen. He favoured continuity with regard to his choice of texts, with the difference here that the majority of the children’s poems this time were not by his poet friend Martin Boelitz, who was represented in the volume only with “Mariä Wiegenlied” (“Maria’s lullaby”, no. 52). Also included were texts by L. Rafael (a pseudonym of Hedwig Kiesekamp) and Ernst Ludwig Schellenberg – both poets whose work Reger had repeatedly set to music, and who had personal contact with him. The copy of Rafael’s Goldgretels Weihnachtsbuch (“Golden Gretel’s Christmas book”) that Reger used, and from which “Das Brüderchen”, “Das Schwesterchen” and “Die Bienen” (“The little brother”, “The little sister”, “The bees”, nos. 53, 54 and 57) were taken, contains an autograph dedication from the author.¹ In contrast to volume II, the poems by Schellenberg that Reger set to music in volume VI were not given to him in manuscript form (“Furchthäschen”, “Scared bunny”; “Der Igel” “The hedgehog”; “Mausefangen”, “Catching mice”; “Zum Schlafen”, “Going to sleep”; and “Der König aus dem Morgenland”, “The king from the East”, nos. 55–56, 58–60). Instead, he took them from Schellenberg’s poetry volume Kinderlieder.² However, Reger had received “Mariä Wiegenlied” from Martin Boelitz in manuscript form.³

The Reger family spent the summer months of 1912 on the Schneewinkl-Lehn estate near Berchtesgaden. This estate belonged to Berthel von Seckendorff, a cousin and foster sister of Elsa Reger. Just as Reger had used his holiday in Oberaudorf in the summer of 1910 to compose Volume V of his Schlichten Weisen, so was its successor volume also a holiday project. According to the date of the song “Der Igel” (no. 56), which was originally intended to conclude the collection, this new volume of songs was finished on 10 August 1912.⁴ Reger sent the manuscript of it to Anton Bock, Hugo Bock’s son, on 20 August: “Please find enclosed a further continuation of my op. 76, ‘Schlichte Weisen’, namely op. 76, vol. 6: nos. 52–60 – ‘Nine children’s songs’ for medium voice with piano accompaniment; a glance at the manuscript will suffice to prove to you that these new children’s songs are child’s play in every respect!” (Letter to Bote & Bock (Anton Bock) of 28 August 1912) For the layout of the printed edition, Reger suggested reusing “the cover of the 1st Children’s songs (with the picture of Lotti and Christa on it)”. (Letter to Bote & Bock (Anton Bock) of 28 August 1912) After some negotiation, Reger accepted an overall fee of 3,500 marks. [See letter to Bote & Bock of 28 August 1912]

When he sent the engraver’s copies on 20 August, Reger asked for the order of the songs to be changed in accordance with “the slip of paper enclosed with this letter, on which the exact order is listed in which the new 9 children’s songs should be engraved!” (Letter to Bote & Bock of 20 August 1912) This paper is no longer extant, but the pagination of the extant engraver’s copies enables us to reconstruct the original order of the songs with relative precision.⁵

Reger enquired about the proofs on 10 September. [See the postcard to Bote & Bock (Gustav Bock) of 10 September 1912 (“When will I finally get the proofs of the new children’s songs, it’s very urgent”)] By 16 September he was able to confirm having received them, [See letter to Bote & Bock (Gustav Bock) of 16 September 1912] and by 19 September he had corrected them. [See letter to Bote & Bock (Gustav Bock) of 19 September 1912] He wrote to his publisher on 11 October to ask for the publication date, by which time the songs were just about to be printed. [See the postcard to Bote & Bock (Gustav Bock) of 11 October 1912] The November 1912 issue of Hofmeister’s catalogue accordingly advertised Reger’s sixth volume of Schlichte Weisen, which was given the subsidiary title: “Nine Children’s Songs. New Series (from the childhood lives of Christa and Lotti)”.⁶ Reger had apparently only intended to publish an edition for medium voice, though his publisher began planning a version for high voice at an early date, and Reger was able to confirm that he was in agreement in a letter to them as early as 18 September 1912.⁷

As the Court Conductor in Meiningen (1911–1914), Reger also cultivated private friendships with the ducal family. He dedicated his Nine Children’s Songs to Marie Elisabeth, Princess of Saxe-Meiningen (1853–1923), the daughter of his employer Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen from his first marriage. This dedication to a lady of advancing age who was unmarried and childless perhaps indicates that she took particular pleasure in interacting with the Regers’ two adopted daughters, and that the Regers reciprocated the friendship.⁸ The Princess’s teachers had included Theodor Kirchner and Hans von Bülow and she was considered an excellent pianist. She also composed. She invited musicians to play chamber music with her in her summer residence, the Villa Felicitas in Berchtesgaden. These included the pianist Marie Baumeyer along with Richard Mühlfeld (clarinet) and Karl Piening (cello), both members of the Meiningen Court Orchestra.⁹ The Reger family were also guests of the Princess in their summer holidays in 1912. Besides volume VI of his Schlichte Weisen, the Princess was the dedicatee of another work that Reger composed in Berchtesgaden that summer, namely the fourth volume of Aus meinem Tagebuch (“From my diary”) op. 82.

2.

Translation by Chris Walton.

“Dedicated to the composer Max Reger in admiration and gratitude from the author. Münster i[n] W[estphalia] Oct. 010” (dedication in Goldgretels Weihnachtsbuch. Kindergedichte, Münster 1910; Reger’s personal copy with annotations in the poems that he set to music (see p. 10 [no. 57] and p. 33 [nos. 53 and 54]): Meininger Museen, Max-Reger-Archiv; shelfmark: RBü 130). – The dedication presumably referred to Reger’s settings of her poems in vol. IV of the Schlichten Weisen. We have no proof of any meeting in person between Reger and Kiesekamp until the following year, 1911.

See Ernst Ludwig Schellenberg, Kinderlieder, 2nd edition, Weimar 1911, specifically p. 8 (no. 60), p. 11 (no. 56), p. 17 (no. 59), p. 19 (no. 58), p. 22 (no. 55).

The manuscript is in a folder with other manuscripts by Martin Boelitz, Meininger Museen, Max-Reger-Archiv, inventory number M. M. XI-5/1839, Ms 2,6.

Engraver’s copy for “Der Igel”, Max-Reger-Institut, Karlsruhe, shelfmark: Mus. Ms. 180, fol. 1v (the page number is given as 18).

Originally, the collection was to have begun with “Furchthäschen” (no. 55), followed by “Zum Schlafen” (no. 59), “Das Schwesterchen” (no. 54) and “Mariä Wiegenlied” (no. 52). The sixth song was originally “Der König aus dem Morgenland” (no. 60), with “Der Igel” (no. 56) bringing the collection to a close. The engraver’s copies of nos. 53 (“Das Brüderchen”), 57 (“Die Bienen”) and 58 (“Mausefangen”) are lost, which means that we cannot determine which songs were originally to be in fifth, seventh and eighth place in the collection.

See Hofmeisters Musikalisch-literarischer Monatsbericht über neue Musikalien, musikalische Schriften und Abbildungen, vol. 84, no. 11 (November 1912), p. 287.

“I’m in agreement with the keys [...] for the soprano edition of my new children’s songs” [see letter to Bote & Bock, presumably of 18 September 1912]. The edition for high voice was published in April 1913, as listed in the corresponding issue of Hofmeister’s catalogue (see Hofmeisters Musikalisch-literarischer Monatsbericht über neue Musikalien, musikalische Schriften und Abbildungen, vol. 85, no. 4 [April 1913], p. 92).

Christa and Lotti are mentioned in their correspondence, greetings are sent to them, and they crocheted doilies for the Princess’s dressing table, for which she also wrote to thank them. See letters to Reger and others from Marie Elisabeth von Saxe-Meiningen from the summer of 1912, as cited in Herzog-Briefe, pp. 308 and 340.

See Maren Goltz, Musiker-Lexikon des Herzogtums Sachsen-Meiningen (1680–1918), Meiningen 2008 (urn:nbn:de:gbv:547-200800945; accessed 8 February 2024), pp. 221f; here: p. 221.

1. Reception

At present, there are no records of performances in Reger's time.

This text is currently only available in German.

1. Stemma

Die in Klammern gesetzten Quellen sind verschollen.

2. Quellenbewertung

Der Edition liegt als Leitquelle der Erstdruck zugrunde. Einzelausgaben und Bandausgabe, die gleichzeitig erschienen, unterscheiden sich nicht im Notentext. Als Referenzquellen dienten die erhaltenen Stichvorlagen (Nr. 52, 54, 55, 56, 59, 60), die vielfach differenzierter bezeichnet sind (siehe Zu den editorischen Besonderheiten in den Liederbänden). Insbesondere im Bereich der Vortragsanweisungen wurde oftmals den Lesarten der Stichvorlagen der Vorzug gegeben. Bei der wenige Monate nach den Originalausgaben erfolgten Herausgabe der Lieder für hohe Stimme war Reger wiederum in den Herstellungs- und Korrekturprozess eingebunden und nahm wohl auch Änderungen vor, jedoch etwas weniger als noch für die transponierten Ausgaben von Band III. Die offensichtlichen Fehlerkorrekturen aus diesen Erstdrucken wurden übernommen (siehe Lesartenverzeichnis).¹ Der Neudruck der Nr. 52 () und 60 () aus dem Kunstwart, die Ausgabe der Nr. 52 für tiefe Stimme sowie Regers Fassungen der Nr. 52 für Singstimme und Orchester, für Klavier und für mittlere Singstimme und Orgel mit Violine ad libitum und ferner der Nr. 52 und 59 (Zum Schlafen) für Violine und Klavier waren für editorische Entscheidungen nicht relevant.

3. Sources

Auch von diesem Band gab Theodor Prusse nach 1919 von ihm revidierte Titelauflagen für alle drei Stimmregister heraus. Zur Einordnung dieser Ausgaben siehe .

Object reference

Max Reger: Mariä Wiegenlied op. 76 Bd. VI No. 52 (from Mariä Wiegenlied op. 76 Nr. 52), in: Reger-Werkausgabe, www.reger-werkausgabe.de/mri_work_01128.html, version 3.1.0-rc3, 20th December 2024.

Information

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