Max REGER (1873-1916)
Choral Works
Der Einsiedler op.144a (1915) [11:41]
Drei sechsstimmige Chore op.39 (1899) [13:33]
Drei Chore op.6 (1892) [13:04]
Drei Gesänge op.111b [7:37]
Palmsonntagmorgen (1902) [5:35]
Requiem op.144b (1916) [14:50]
Alexander Learmonth (baritone); Alice Gribbin (soprano); Christopher Glynn
(piano)
Consortium/Andrew-John Smith
rec. September 2009, St Jude-on-the-Hill, Hampstead Garden Suburb,
London, United Kingdom
HYPERION CDA67762 [66:22]
A wonderful disc this, and a testament to yet another undervalued dimension
of the artistry of Max Reger. Very few of the common complaints about Reger's
music apply here: the music is consistently inspired, often light, elegant
and wholly free from the stodginess that blights so many of his organ works.
The broad theme of the compilation is secular choral music, but all that really
means is that none of the music is specifically liturgical. Religious themes
certainly make themselves felt, and the music moves between states of devotion,
veneration and praise. A few of the poems that Reger sets are genuinely secular,
those of Nikolas Lenau for example, and Gustav Falke, but a strong devotional
undercurrent flows even through these works. It is a religious feeling borne
out of a complete absence of irony, and for a composer working in the age
of Mahler and Richard Strauss, the self-imposed seriousness of this aesthetic
almost seems to have been transplanted from an earlier age. But while he is
always serious, he is never dour.
Stylistically, the most important predecessor to this music is Brahms, and
you could be forgiven for occasionally mistaking individual passages here
for some of Brahms' early choral works. But then you'll meet an unusual harmonic
shift or a flowery piano interpolation that clearly belongs to a later time.
Generally though, Reger's approach to choral writing is to use simple harmonies
and homophonic textures, but to regularly jump between only distantly related
harmonies, often several times within the span of a single phrase. The only
exception to Reger's stylistic conventions is the 'Drei Gesänge' Op.111b
for unaccompanied women's voices. Here the musical textures are even more
simple, and the sound-world tends towards the medieval. This level of musical
simplicity really brings out the best in Reger, he wasn't much of a melodist,
yet there is a lyricism to much of his music that can really carry these simple,
straightforward textures.
Reger died young and the last year or two of his life were extraordinarily
prolific. There seem to be many, many works - orchestral, piano, chamber,
organ - that are habitually described as amongst his very last. The two major
choral works that frame this programme, 'Der Einsiedler' and 'Requiem' apparently
qualify too. Together they make up his Op.144 out of a total of 147, suggesting
they are indeed very late. The music of both works is almost mystical in its
use of widely spaced chords, unusual harmonic shifts and dreamy arpeggios
in the accompaniment. The most interesting of the two is 'Requiem', a kind
of abbreviated response to Brahms' 'German Requiem', with many stylistic links.
Reger's Requiem is a term with complex textual issues. He began a setting
of the Requiem mass in his younger years, but it remains incomplete, the fragments
having the misleading opus number 145a. The Requiem that appears here is not
a liturgical setting but rather a setting of a poem with the same name by
Christian Friedrich Hebbel. To complicate matters further, this Requiem (and
'Der Einsiedler' too) were written for choir with orchestral accompaniment,
but Reger's version with piano accompaniment predominates these days, to the
extent that the work is played at all.
The performances are all good. The choir 'Consortium' doesn't have a very
inspiring name, but is an impressive ensemble. This is only their second disc,
their first being an album of Brahms songs (Hyperion CDA67775), to which this
should provide the ideal complement. The sound of the sopranos at the very
top is sometimes a little abrasive, although I'm more inclined to blame the
composer for his repeated use of the upper register than the singers for the
occasional brittleness of texture. The choir is small, which aids the articulation
and tuning, but sometimes makes for underpowered climaxes. Given that the
Op.144 works were written with a full symphony orchestra in mind, the composer's
intention must surely have been for a choir at least twice this size. But
the music is flexible and retains its symphonic grandeur even in this more
intimate environment. Not that it is all pseudo-symphonic; the other works
on the disc, especially the 'Drei Gesänge' demonstrate the directness
and simplicity that characterises much of Reger's music. It is a surprisingly
varied programme, and an impressively performed disc. Any fans of Brahms'
choral music would be well advised to take a chance on it.
Gavin Dixon
A surprisingly varied programme and an impressively performed disc.