RWA Volume II/4 – Biographical context
Knud Breyer, Stefan König
1.
The years from 1903 to 1903 brought a sense of consolidation to both Reger’s private life and his professional situation.1 He had married Elsa von Bercken on 25 October 1902, who provided him with a dependable home environment.2 She was also able to support him with his correspondence and occasionally even with copying his music. In order to be able to finance their life together, Reger established further sources of professional income besides composing. He gathered together a circle of private students and wrote a textbook on modulation to get himself known as a teacher and music theorist. He completed this book in June 1903, and when his publisher Lauterbach & Kuhn turned it down, he gave it to C. F. Kahnt Nachfolger in Leipzig, who published it in November 1903 under the title Beiträge zur Modulationslehre (Supplement to the Theory of Modulation). It proved very popular, as is evident from the numerous new editions and translations that it enjoyed.3
The year 1903 also saw Reger embark on further, extremely arduous, time-consuming tasks, for which he even postponed his work on large-scale compositions such as his Gesang der Verklärten op. 71, the Violin Sonata op. 72 and the String Quartet op. 74, which he only completed in the late autumn of that year. When Hugo Wolf died in a Viennese sanatorium on 22 February 1903, Lauterbach & Kuhn acquired a portion of his archives, and Reger now became involved in the process of publishing these works. He made arrangements for male-voice choir of Wolf’s Six Sacred Songs, originally for mixed chorus, and prepared piano reductions of both the symphonic poem Penthesilea and the Italian Serenade . He also supervised the editing of Wolf’s works from the summer of 1903 onwards,4 which occupied him until the spring of 1904. Reger subsequently wrote his Sinfonietta op. 905 and the essay “Hugo Wolfs künstlerischer Nachlass” (“Hugo Wolf’s artistic heritage”), an accusatory essay that he closed with the poem “Die Peitsche euch!” (“You deserve the whip!”)6 by Gustav Falke. He continued his diatribes in two further essays. One Arthur Smolian had published a cutting review of Reger’s theory of modulation in the Neue musikalische Presse.7 Reger now threw down the gauntlet in a reply entitled “May I have the floor?”,8 though Smolian did not respond. Max Arend had similarly written a negative review of Reger’s book,9 and the latter now embarked on a highly polemical response to him in the article “Mehr Licht” (“More light”, referring to the supposed last two words of the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe),10 though this had to be heavily edited by Arnold Schering, the editor of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, before it could be published.11
Late 1903 brought an important event: the first performance of Reger’s Violin Sonata op. 72 in Munich on 5 November, with Richard Rettich as the violin soloist. This concert brought into the open the antipathies that existed between Reger and the so-called Munich School of composers centred on Max Schillings and Ludwig Thuille, both of whom left the hall demonstratively before the Sonata was played.Note: See the article Reger und die Münchner Schule It was the diplomatic intervention of Paul Nikolaus Cossmann of the Süddeutsche Monatshefte that succeeded in smoothing these troubled waters.12 He proposed the creation of a Munich chapter of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein (ADMV, the “General German Music Association”), with both Schillings and Reger serving on its board. They agreed, and blamed their conflict on mere misunderstandings. The first concert organised by this Munich chapter took place in the Kaim Hall on 29 April 1904 and was devoted entirely to Reger’s music, including the first performance of his Clarinet Sonata op. 49 no. 2. But further conflict with Schillings prompted Reger’s resignation from the society in 1906. The second performance of Reger’s Violin Sonata op. 72 was actually of even greater import than its Munich premiere; it took place at the annual festival (the “Tonkünstlerfest”) of the ADMV in Frankfurt am Main on 31 May 1904, with the violinist Henri Marteau accompanied by Reger. The catalogue of Reger’s publisher Lauterbach & Kuhn refers to this performance in its review of the season in question: “The 1904/05 concert season marked a decisive turning point in the general recognition of Max Reger’s compositions. Whereas in the previous winter most of Reger’s works had been all but excluded from concert life , as of the [ADMV] Festival in Frankfurt am Main (in May 1904), progressive-minded music circles soon became increasingly interested in Reger and his unique art.”13 For Reger, however, this had consequences of which he complained in a letter to Henri Hinrichsen, the owner of the publishing house Verlags C. F. Peters: “Next winter, I shall be living in trains, as I will have to criss-cross ‘half the world’; since Frankfurt, people want to hear me play the piano in all manner of towns now.”14 He gave concerts throughout Germany, accompanying his latest songs with the singers Amalie Gimkiewicz, Julie Sophie (genannt Lula) Mysz-Gmeiner (known by the first name “Lula”), Sophie Rikoff, Clara Rahn and Sanna van Rhyn. Reger travelled across Germany and Switzerland with Henri Marteau, while further concert tours also took him to the Netherlands and Austria. Other publishers also became aware of Reger – such as Hans Simrock – and tried to establish business relations with him (see the section below on the Four Songs op. 88).
For Reger, the year 1904 also brought a financially lucrative step up in his career.15 In October of that year, the conductor Felix Mottl was made the Director of the Royal Academy of Music in Munich, and he immediately contacted Reger in order to win him for the Academy staff. He also helped to push his appointment through the ministry responsible, and a positive decision was accordingly made in December 1904. Reger officially became a lecturer in counterpoint, composition and organ at the Academy as of 1 May 1905.16 He held this position until May 1906; he was subsequently appointed to a lectureship at the Leipzig Conservatory in February 1907.
About this Blogpost
Authors:
Knud Breyer, Stefan König
Translations:
Chris Walton (en)
Date:
20th September 2023
Tags:
Module IISongsVol. II/4
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Citation
Knud Breyer, Stefan König: RWA Volume II/4 – Biographical context, in: Reger-Werkausgabe, www.reger-werkausgabe.de/rwa_post_00037, version 3.1.0-rc3, 20th December 2024.
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