RWA Volume I/4 – Chorale preludes; Early reception
Alexander Becker, Stefan König, Christopher Grafschmidt, Stefanie Steiner-Grage
1.
Reviews of Reger’s chorale preludes began with op. 67.1 In April 1903 Reger sent Josef Hofmiller, the reviewer of the Süddeutsche Monatshefte, a copy of the work “in the hope that you will have fun with these 3 volumes of completely unmodern music. In my firm belief in the sanctity of the German spirit, however, I hope that this seemingly ‘old’ music will also become truly thoroughly ‘modern’ one day. The return to Bach will surely come!” (Postcard) On publication of op. 67, chorale preludes were again in great demand, however, the music writer Roderich von Mojsisovics, for example, complained that “since Bach’s unique monumental works in this genre […]” they had become “entirely the playground of intellectual impotence and professional over-prolixity which only appeals to country and town organists attracted to this style” (Review).
Reger’s work therefore had to be able to hold its own against a “positive deluge of organ preludes” (ibid.), and, as well as quality, also required an efficient marketing strategy. In the process, he regarded his chorale preludes in the long term as an asset in order to compensate his publisher Lauterbach & Kuhn for possible business losses on other publications. So he promised in September 1903: “You will see, in op 67 alone you will have a never-ending source of income!” (Letter) Reger’s relentless willingness to advertise his labours of love, and thus to contribute to the publicity issued by his publisher is particularly well documented with op. 67. Immediately after publication of the three volumes in April 1903 he lavished free copies on reviewers and performers of his acquaintance including Walter Fischer, Theodor Kroyer, Alexander Wilhelm Gottschalg, Robert Frenzel, Georg Stolz, Ernst Rabich, and the previously-mentioned Josef Hofmiller. In addition Reger again pressed for a publisher’s brochure devoted to these works alone, which was finally available in September 1903. The Chorale Preludes op. 67 were presented in this brochure as the “most important novelty for organists”, and detailed extracts from enthusiastic reviews were included as evidence.
In fact, the Fifty-two Easy Chorale Preludes op. 67, as Hermann Wilske stated, “were amongst the most unreservedly well-received works by Reger of all”.2 In particular, the broadly-conceived effectiveness of the collection, which could satisfy liturgical, concert and didactic requirements in equal measure, was appreciated: “These preludes for seminaries, conservatoires and organist schools are also of the highest value for teaching, for the benefits which they can offer to music students regarding independent part-writing and consistent musical thought can be easily recognized”, summarised Robert Frenzel, for instance, in the Monatschrift für Gottesdienst und kirchliche Kunst.(Review) The fact that Reger knew how to approach op. 67 compositionally as well as harmonically – according to the unanimous judgement – “with admirable restraint” (see review by Georg Stolz), placated even declared Reger opponents, who in particular could not find any way of approaching the larger-scale works. So, for instance, Max Vancsa, who openly admitted to have earlier “been half-dead with anger about the pains and artificialities of Reger’s songs and chamber music”, acknowledged that the Chorale Preludes had “the makings […] – namely in Protestant Germany – to achieve the broadest circulation and, in the best sense of the word, to become popular”. (Review)
Alongside references to Johann Sebastian Bach 3, comparisons with the Eleven Chorale Preludes for organ op. 122 by Johannes Brahms, published posthumously the year before, were almost unavoidable. Karl Straube even explicitly contrasted Brahms’s Chorale Preludes with op. 67 as “religious studies by a worldling”, which (op. 67) “having grown out of the religious sensibility” were to find their place […] “in Sunday worship”. The characterisation with which Straube precedes this observation (and which ultimately probably reveals more about the author than the composer), has his typically obscure heroic-dramatic style, as in many places in its assessment of Reger’s liturgical works: “If he wants to reflect the beauty of life, this happens with ponderous grandeur; a last shimmer from the golden splendor of the early Baroque shines out. If he wants to joke, then bitter irony distorts the joke to the point of grim satire. Astringent sounds and laborious lingering melismas reflect heroic efforts and anguished combat as scarcely any composer had done before. Such a spirit cannot behold the fulfilment of existence in this life. An afterlife full of blissful joy, as Christ promises to the church, gives the oppressed of this world heavenly reparation. Inner thoughts and feelings led the artist time and again to pay homage according to his abilities to religious ideas, to serve the church, the bearer of such a view of the world. So the ‘52 Chorale preludes’ (op. 67) were created!” (Review)
Of course even Straube did not use op. 67 exclusively in worship. Although he first introduced the pieces at regular intervals into the weekly performances of motets at the Leipzig Thomaskirche, he soon included selected preludes in his concert repertoire, as did many of his colleagues.4 The collection also offered concert reviewers welcome orientation points for understanding Reger’s organ works. Here, after the chorale fantasias and freely-composed organ works which exceeded conventions, they found compositions they could immediately comprehend, “in which the austere solemnity of the Protestant-religious spirit is transfigured through a quite exceptional magical atmosphere” (Review by Theodor Göring).
Whilst Reger promoted op. 67 almost ceaselessly, the compositions published as a collection op. 79b remained a lesser work for him, one which he made no effort to market. Neither are any contemporary reviews known of this collection. At any rate, Reger sent the publisher N. Simrock a “review […] from the Hannoverscher Kurier” of the Thirty Little Chorale Preludes op. 135a at the end of 1915.5 During the war years the Thirty Little Chorale Preludes were widely performed in devotional concerts given for the edification of the people. The renowned Reger interpreter Hermann Dettmer, for instance, included a few pieces in the programs of his “organ hours”, which he performed in the Stadthalle Hanover to audiences of up to 2,000 (see 3 January 1916 and Performances). In this context they were appropriate for a demand for introverted, consolatory pieces.
About this Blogpost
Authors:
Alexander Becker, Stefan König, Christopher Grafschmidt, Stefanie Steiner-Grage
Translations:
Elizabeth Robinson (en)
Date:
1st June 2013
Tags:
Module IVol. I/4
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Citation
Alexander Becker, Stefan König, Christopher Grafschmidt, Stefanie Steiner-Grage: RWA Volume I/4 – Chorale preludes; Early reception, in: Reger-Werkausgabe, www.reger-werkausgabe.de/rwa_post_00051, version 3.1.0-rc3, 20th December 2024.
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