MAXimally fallen in love – Favourite pieces by Max Reger

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What is your favorite piece by Max Reger? Friends of Reger's music give personal answers. Some are attracted to a certain sound, find themselves in the complex personality of Max Reger or have already played “their” work in an exam. A podcast series in cooperation with the Max-Reger-Institut and the Institute for Music Journalism at the Karlsruhe University of Music.

Ghost train ride that ends well

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Among all of Reger's piano works that pianist Markus Becker has played, the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Johann Sebastian Bach op. 81 for piano stand out particularly for him.

Alexandra Gulzarova

Goosebumps out of a suitcase

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Susanne Popp has been involved with Reger almost all her life. It was not easy for the former director of the Max Reger Institute and edition director of the Reger-Werkausgabe to decide on a heartfelt piece. The story about the Symphonic Prologue to a Tragedy op. 108 gives an insight into her work as a collector.

Penelope Gatidis

Peace at last

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The composer Enjott Schneider feels very close to Max Reger and his music. He has also adapted Reger's Requiem op. 144b in a work of his own.

Alexandra Gulzarova

There I will find you

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For Hermann Wilske, there is not a single weak piece by Reger. The President of the Landesmusikrats Baden-Württemberg has a special connection with the Fantasy and Fugue in D minor, op. 135b.

Franka Hennes

There I will find you

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Even in her youth, the mezzo-soprano Frauke May-Jones counted Friedrich Hölderlin's An die Hoffnung among her favourite poems. This is not the only reason why she has intensively studied Reger's setting op. 124.

Henrike Wagner

A real closing point

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"Do something for Reger!" was the advice his former teacher gave him. Since then, the General Music Director of the Badische Staatskapelle Karlsruhe Georg Fritzsch has not only performed the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart op.132 again and again.

Henrike Wagner

Neighbours, not only in spirit

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Reger understood the clarinet like hardly any other composer, says Jörg Widmann about the Clarinet Quintet in A major op. 146. For him, the work is not only "beautiful to kneel down", but was also a source of inspiration for his own clarinet quintet.

Bennet Leitritz

A good experience

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Reger's Aus der Jugendzeit op. 17 reminds the pianist and Echo Klassik prize winner Yaara Tal of early childhood experiences with her piano teacher.

Alexandra Gulzarova

Atmosphere of the very special

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As a student, Thomas Seedorf sang the difficult motet »Mein Odem ist schwach« op. 110 No. 1 in the choir. For the member of the board of trustees of the Max-Reger-Institute and editorial director of the Reger-Werkausgabe, the work is an original source of his understanding of Reger.

Penelope Gatidis

Discovery of the unconscious

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For Bernhard Haas, the Variations and Fugue on an Original Theme in F-sharp Minor op. 73 are not only among Reger's richest works. The organist also discovers one of the composer's greatest historical achievements in this work.

Penelope Gatidis

With all fingers simultaneously

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Ulrich Konrad invested his money in records by Reger as a young man. Being a musicologist and member of the board of trustees of the Max-Reger-Institute he has a particularly intensive connection to the Concerto in F minor op. 114 for piano and orchestra.

Franka Hennes

Bursting with ideas

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“Reger surprises me again and again”, states Ester Petri. The managing director of Carus-Verlag especially appreciates the Eight Sacred Songs op. 138, with which the deeply devout Max Reger wrote choral pieces full of consolation and fear of God at the beginning of the First World War.

Tabita Prochnau

Struggle for identity

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For the pianist, university rector and chairman of the board of the International Max Reger Society Rudolf Meister, the Violin Sonata in C major op. 72 is a masterpiece that he enjoys playing again and again. The fact that it is teeming with sheep and monkeys is not only a sign of Reger's inimitable wit.

Franka Hennes

Triptych of Freedom

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Agostino Raff finds Max Reger and his music fiery, irascible and explosive - but always generous. The Italian artist has been inspired by several Reger works to create paintings. He also worked intensively with the Phantasy and Fugue on the chorale "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" op. 52 No. 2 and painted a triptych for it.

Tabita Prochnau

Reger can do that too?

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For the first violinist of the Aris Quartet, Anna Katharina Wildermuth, Max Reger created a cosmos of its own in his Clarinet Quintet in A major op. 146, which sounds incomparable but is not easy to play.

Henrike Wagner

Democracy in the orchestra

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For more than twenty years, Alexander Becker has been studying the Sinfonietta in A major op. 90. In Reger's longest orchestral work, the director of the Max-Reger-Institute still discovers new things.

Bennet Leitritz