RWA Online Blog RWA Volume II/8 – Biographical context

RWA Volume II/8 – Biographical context

Alexander Becker, Stefan König, Christopher Grafschmidt, Stefanie Steiner-Grage

1.

When Reger returned to the family home at Weiden ill and in debt in June 1898, he initially regarded this as just a transitional stage. He wanted to recover physically (and mentally) there and then move on quickly to a musical center.1 But in fact he remained in his native town for three years, leaving only in summer 1901 to head for Munich. In the seclusion of Weiden he succeeded in recovering his health, putting his financial affairs in order, and making his musical breakthrough. At first, however, Reger had to find new publishers, for his works were increasingly being rejected by Augener in London, with whom he had signed a seven year contract in 1892. The piano pieces opp. 22 to 26, composed in summer 1898, were written, according to Adalbert Lindner, with a view to the marketability of the genre,2 whilst in August that year Reger also began writing his series of major organ works; in Karl Straube he had a brilliant performer at his disposal, and thus performances and reviews were guaranteed. At this time he may also have turned to writing different kinds of choral music for similar strategic reasons, a genre which was well represented in its many different facets in musical life.

2. Works for male choir

A request from Adalbert Lindner in summer 1898 to write some male voice choral pieces for the Weiden Liederkranz marked the beginning of Reger’s choral output (apart from some single works WoO VI/1, VI/2 and VI/3 [see below] and the Three Choruses op. 6, partly also written in Wiesbaden). Reger initially categorically turned down this request “with the objection that he was not particularly sympathetic to male voice choral writing” 3. The comment refers less to the compositional limitations of the scoring than to Reger’s “very strongly pronounced aversion […] to the common ‘Liedertafelei’” (Letter to Wilhelm Lamping, 14. July 1900).4

It is not known what persuaded Reger to relent and compose works for male voice choirs. At any rate he turned to the genre soon afterwards with a first setting, Lacrimä Christi WoO VI/5, a work which was later rejected. Around the same time he composed the Hymne an den Gesang op. 21 for male voice choir and orchestra for the anniversary of the foundation of the Weiden Liederkranz.5 Between autumn 1898 and January 1899 a total of 16 folk song settings for male voice choir (WoO VI/6, VI/7, VI/8 and VI/9) were to follow, some of which Reger was also able to rehearse and perform in Weiden. To others Reger described these settings as “piquefein” (exquisite) and stressed: “the chorus is treated quite differently”. (Letter dated 23 December 1898 to Caesar Hochstetter) From here it was just a short step for Reger to composing choruses for mixed voices. For him, there was no question of an aesthetic distinction between “the two singing cultures”6.

3. Works for mixed choir

Directly following on from his second male voice choir collection WoO VI/7, in February/March 1899 Reger composed folk song settings for mixed voice choir (see WoO VI/10), in the process drawing on songs which he had set previously for male voice choir (similarly later also in his madrigal arrangements RWV Madrigale-B1 and 2). In retrospect Reger’s male voice choral settings definitely seem to be preparation for his mixed voice choral writing. For with his original choruses too, in the autumn of that year the Seven Male Voice Choruses op. 38 were followed by the more opulent Three Choruses op. 39 for six-part mixed ensemble.

Whilst his male voice choir compositions came to a temporary halt with these, over the turn of the year 1899/1900 Reger turned to sacred choral works (see WoO VI/12), which form a main emphasis of the present volume with around 100 unaccompanied settings. Here, Reger likewise drew on sacred poetry (Opus 61 and WoO VI/12, 15 and 18) and on hymns (WoO VI/13, 14, 17 and 19 and Opus 79f).7 Between compositions which were intended for the concert hall or as the musical aesthetic in church services, there are also – as in the series with Opus 61 or WoO VI/17 – collections which are consciously kept simple with functional music for both Protestant and Catholic confessions. Not least, these show Reger’s endeavors to provide material as comprehensively as possible for the widely varied choral scene prominent in musical life at the end of the 19th century.

1
See (letter dated 14 June 1898 to Richard Linnemann) (C.F.W. Siegel Verlag), in Der junge Reger: “I am leaving Wiesbaden never to see it again & will very probably, when I get my extremely weakened health in order, settle in Leipzig. ‘In the long run’ one has indeed to stagnate in W. [Wiesbaden], the ‘Eldorado of lack of talent’”.
2
See Lindner 1922, p. 164.
3
Ibid., p. 172.
4
This dislike may have encompassed a mixture of an aversion to popular repertoire with its sometimes undemanding settings, the jingoistic Germanic stance of the choral associations, and the self-assurance of some male voice choruses locally as merely sociable or associations of worthies (see Dietmar Klenke, Der singende “deutsche Mann”. Gesangvereine und deutsches Nationalbewußtsein von Napoleon bis Hitler, Münster 1998, in particular the chapter “Die deutschen Vereinssänger als gesellige Stützen des Kaiserreichs”, pp. 150–157, and “Die Sängerführer als treibende Kraft des organisierten Nationalismus”, pp. 174–179). Friedhelm Brusniak recognized “an unashamedly nationalistic tendency” as early as 1887 in publications of the Deutscher Sängerbund, which became stronger as German powers developed (“Der Deutsche Sängerbund und das ‘deutsche Lied’”, in Nationale Musik im 20. Jahrhundert. Kompositorische und soziokulturelle Aspekte der Musikgeschichte zwischen Ost- und Westeuropa, Konferenzbericht Leipzig 2002, ed. Helmut Loos/ Stefan Keym, Leipzig 2003, pp. 409–421, here p. 411).
5
For further detail on this, see Stefanie Steiner, “‘an manchen Stellen eine ganz neue Art der Stimmenbehandlung’? Max Regers Hymne an den Gesang op. 21”, in Reger-Studien 7, pp. 77–90.
6
See Klenke (see note 4), p. 168.
7
However, a collection planned by Reger in summer 1902 with up to fifty sacred folk songs (see letter dated 13 July 1902 to Georg Stolz) did not materialize.
About this Blogpost

Authors:
Alexander Becker, Stefan König, Christopher Grafschmidt, Stefanie Steiner-Grage

Translations:
Elizabeth Robinson (en)

Date:
18th June 2018

Tags:
Module IIChoirsVol. II/8

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Citation

Alexander Becker, Stefan König, Christopher Grafschmidt, Stefanie Steiner-Grage: RWA Volume II/8 – Biographical context, in: Reger-Werkausgabe, www.reger-werkausgabe.de/rwa_post_00039, version 3.1.0-rc3, 20th December 2024.

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