Booklet

Guild GmbH
Switzerland
GHCD 2400/01
2013 Guild GmbH
© 2013 Guild GmbH
EDUARD VAN BEINUM
EUGEN
JOCHUM
FRITZ
LEHMANN
ROBERT
HEGER

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MAX REGER (1873-1916)
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Eine Lustspielouvertüre, Op.120 7:08
Staatskapelle Berlin, FRITZ LEHMANN, 10 May 1941 – Odeon O-9121
Serenade in G, Op.95
I. Allegro molto 12:59
II. Vivace a Burlesca 3:34
III. Andante semplice 10:24
IV. Allegro con spirito 13:24
Berliner Philharmoniker, EUGEN JOCHUM, 8 July 1943 – Urania URLP 7052
Eine Ballett-Suite, Op.130
I. Entrée. Tempo di marcia 2:56
II. Colombine. Adagietto 3:52
III. Harlequin. Vivace 2:07
IV. Pierrot et Pierrette. Larghetto 3:20
V. Valse d amour. Sostenuto 2:54
VI. Finale. Presto 2:24
Concertgebouw Orkest Amsterdam, EDUARD van BEINUM,
17–21 May 1943 – Polydor 68227–229, 2355–2360 GE 5
Waldeinsamkeit, Op.76 Nr.3 1:57
Des Kindes Gebet, Op.76 Nr.22 2:29
ANNI FRIND, Orchestra, Bruno Seidler-Winkler
11 March 1936 – Electrola E. G. 3643, 0RA 1124–1125
Mariä Wiegenlied, Op.76 Nr.52 2:06
Zum Schlafen, Op.76 Nr.59 2:07
ELISABETH SCHUMANN, Orchestra
22 and 2 November 1937 – Electrola D.A. 1619; OEA 5900–5901
A GUILD HISTORICAL RELEASE
• Master source: The collection of Jürgen Schaarwächter, Max-Reger-Institut, Karlsruhe
• Remastering: Peter Reynolds
• Final master preparation: Reynolds Mastering, Colchester, England
• Photos of Max Reger by L. O. Weber (Meiningen, 1915) courtesy of Max-Reger-Institut, Karlsruhe
• Design: Paul Brooks, Design and Print, Oxford
• Art direction: Guild GmbH
• Executive co-ordination: Guild GmbH
• We would like to express our gratitude to the assistance of Professor Dr. Jan Derom (Belgium),
Rob Kruijt, Koog aan de Zaan (Netherlands), Gert Schäfer (Schlangenbad), Professor Dr. Klaus
Schöler (Kreuztal) and Jörg Wyrschowy, Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv, Frankfurt/Main.
The second Eichendorff poem was translated by John Bernhoff around 1900.
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ALSO AVAILABLE ON GUILD
CD2
GHCD 2371
GHCD 2372
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Eine romantische Suite, Op.125
I. Notturno 9:57
II. Scherzo 7:25
III. Finale 10:45
Groot Symfonieorkest van Zender Brussel, FRITZ LEHMANN
7–15 April 1942 – Odeon O-9136–39
Variationen und Fuge über ein Thema von Mozart, Op.132
Thema. Andante grazioso 2:37
Variation 1. L’istesso tempo 2:27
Variation 2. Poco agitato 2:12
Variation 3. Con moto 1:33
Variation 4. Vivace 0:40
Variation 5. Quasi presto 1:28
Variation 6. Sostenuto (quasi adagietto) 2:14
Variation 7. Andante grazioso 2:48
Variation 8. Molto sostenuto 7:51
Fugue. Allegretto grazioso 8:42
Concertgebouw Orkest Amsterdam, EDUARD van BEINUM
17–21 May 1943 – Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft 68222–226, 2369–2378
Eine vaterländische Ouvertüre, Op.140 14:01
Städtisches Orchester Berlin, ROBERT HEGER
10 November 1942 – Polydor 59194–95, gs 2013–2016 gs
GHCD 2363 GMCD 7192
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The knowledge of the music of Max Reger is usually restricted to a comparatively small
number of compositions, particularly for organ. Yet his orchestral output was smaller
maybe in number, but not in substance. From fairly early on, Reger was interested in
orchestral music, one of his first compositions as a fifteen-years old boy (soon after destroyed
by the composer) being a lengthy Overture in B minor. Several early orchestral attempts have, if
ever, been performed only once, e.g. an Overture in D minor (Heroide) (1889) and two first (and
only) movements of Symphonies in D minor (1890 and 1902 respectively). All these projects were
abandoned by the composer (the 1902 symphonic movement not even completed), and it was to
take until 1904 that Reger produced his first fully valid orchestral work, which he called Sinfonietta
but which is a Symphony in all but name. The controversy arising from its first performance in
Munich (following the premiere performance in Essen in 1905) and insinuating that Reger wasn’t
an orchestral composer of any real capability at all resulted in the composer taking up the challenge
and providing an orchestral work of the utmost clarity and refinement. He called this work, hardly
shorter in duration than the Sinfonietta, Serenade in G, Op. 95, and the work received its first
performance on 23 October 1906 in Cologne. Eugen Jochum (1902–1987) became an important
interpreter of the work, making a studio recording of it for Telefunken in Amsterdam on 21-22 June
1943 (which has been re-issued on Tahra). Also two live renderings of the Serenade conducted by
Jochum have survived, one, much later, also from Amsterdam (22 January 1979), the other being a
concert performance on 8 July 1943 with the Berlin Philharmonic at the Reichspropagandaamt. In
1941 Jochum toured the occupied countries with the Berlin Philharmonic and was, in 1944, one of
the “Divinely Gifted” in a list authorized by Hitler. He used this position, at least as long as he could
until the end of the 1930s, to perform music of composers otherwise banned in Germany, including
Hindemith, Stravinsky, and Bartók. The 1943 Berlin Reichsrundfunk broadcast was after the war
taken to the United States and released there on the Urania label.
It is interesting to see which of Reger’s works were the first ones to be recorded. Figuring in
central place is the orchestral music, which may be explained by the comparatively easy accessibility
of some of the compositions. It took sometime before a larger selection of chamber music was
recorded, due, as in fact with Reger’s organ music, to its complex texture, which would suffer from
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surprising that famous singers not always chose Reger’s own orchestrations but new arrangements
were made for them. Furthermore, Zum Schlafen and Waldeinsamkeit, two lieder from Reger’s
famous collection of a total of sixty Schlichte Weisen, Op. 76, were not orchestrated by Reger himself.
Of course, sopranos Elisabeth Schumann (1888–1952) and Anni Frind (1900–1987) were only two
of several singers to record Reger lieder in the 1930s and ‘40s, but their individual voices fit most
perfectly the four delightful miniatures. Schumann, who emigrated in 1937 to the United States, is
of course the much better-known name as one of the best lieder singers of her time. Frind on the
contrary, who retired from performing at the outbreak of the war in order to avoid collaboration
with the Nazis, is nowadays almost totally forgotten, not least because of the smaller number of her
recordings; still she was considered one of the most highly recorded lyric sopranos in Germany
during the 1920s and ‘30s.
© Jürgen Schaarwächter, 2013
Max-Reger-Institut, Karlsruhe
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Hermann Abendroth lacked the fugue – so van Beinum was the first to profit from the advanced
sound recording quality being a by-product of warfare.
The Reger orchestral composition that matched best the demands of the Nazi forces was a
work that here receives its CD premiere – the Vaterländische Ouvertüre (Patriotic Overture),
Op. 140, Reger’s last orchestral composition which had received its first performance in the same
concert as the Mozart Variations, on 8 January 1915 in Wiesbaden, conducted by Reger himself.
An occasional work by nature, it is pure Reger by matter of contrapuntal mastery and motivic
development, culminating in the “contrapuntal miracle” of a combination of the German National
Anthem, the chorale Nun danket alle Gott, and the patriotic songs Die Wacht am Rhein and Ich hab
mich ergeben, and so musically was only in part suited to Nazi purposes. It was, amongst others,
performed (and recorded) by the Orchestra of the Deutschlandsender on the eve of the Second
World War, the studio recording for the Deutsche Grammophon following only some three years
later. This comparatively late recording date makes clear that there were in Reger’s music matters
concerned that were largely diverging from the Nazis’ intentions. Yet since the Second World War
the work has never been performed again in Germany, Reger’s (short-lived) “Great War” euphoria
being stigmatized by the abuse of the work during dark times. The conductor of the only-ever
commercial recording of the overture was Robert Heger (1886–1978), who had been an opera
conductor nearly all of his life, including engagements at Strasbourg, Ulm, Vienna, Munich and the
Berlin State Opera (from 1936); he concluded his career in Bavaria from 1950 as Chief Conductor
at the Munich State Opera and (until 1954) President of the Conservatoire.
In concert performance Reger often combined piano and chamber music with sections of piano
lieder, and the same practice was regularly encountered in vocal orchestral concerts; yet Reger as
a performer was deeply dissatisfied with the impression the lieder made after the performance of
a symphony or a concerto, and so he began orchestrating songs by himself and by others (Brahms,
Grieg, Schubert, Wolf), such arrangements reaching their peak in the Meiningen years 1914-5.
Apart from some exceptions (for example Kirsten Flagstad recorded Reger’s orchestration of Grieg’s
Eros, Op. 70 No. 1 for EMI) these orchestrations remained largely forgotten until well into the late
1990s, when Horst Stein recorded all twelve of Reger’s own lied orchestrations. And so it is not
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the possibilities of sound recordings in these times. This might also have affected Reger’s orchestral
works, but from the earliest attempts of recording orchestral Reger (in Fritz Busch’s rendering of
part of the Mozart Variations Op. 132, in Stuttgart in 1919, GHCD 2371) it became clear that Reger
is an orchestral composer who, with sufficient rehearsal time, is very successful on record.
Another important exponent of German Reger conductors of the time was, apart from Jochum
and Fritz Busch, Fritz Lehmann (1904–1956). Lehmann, a prolific Bach conductor who died during
a performance of the St. Matthew Passion from a heart attack, had conducted his career largely
unhindered by the Nazis, from 1938 as General Music Director in Wuppertal, a post which he
held until 1946. He resigned, however, in 1944 from the post as Artistic Director of the Göttingen
International Händel Festival after conflict with the Nazi authorities. Like Jochum, Lehmann served
Nazi purposes by conducting in the occupied countries. There, with the Brussels Radio Symphony
Orchestra, he made a studio recording of Reger’s Romantische Suite, Op. 125, the composer’s most
“impressionist” work written in 1912 during his position as Chief Conductor of the Meiningen
Court Orchestra (a position previously held, amongst others, by Hans von Bülow, Richard Strauss
and Fritz Steinbach). The composition based on three poems by Joseph von Eichendorff. Since the
poems are essential to the work’s understanding, they are given here.
Notturno
Hörst du nicht die Quellen gehen
Zwischen Stein und Blumen weit
Nach den stillen Waldesseen,
Wo die Marmorbilder stehen
In der schönen Einsamkeit?
Von den Bergen sacht hernieder,
Weckend die uralten Lieder,
Steigt die wunderbare Nacht,
Und die Gründe glänzen wieder,
Wie du’s oft im Traum gedacht ...
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Notturno
Don’t you hear the springs running
between stone and flowers far
t’ward the calm wood lakes,
where the marble statues stand
in fine solitude?
From the mountains, gently,
awakening ancient songs,
wondrous night descends,
and the meadows shine again,
as you’d dreamt many times ...

Scherzo
Bleib bei uns! wir haben den Tanzplan im Tal
Bedeckt mit Mondesglanze,
Johanneswürmchen erleuchten den Saal,
die Heimchen spielen im Tanze.
Die Freude, das schöne leichtgläubige Kind,
Es wiegt sich in Abendwinden:
Wo Silber auf Zweigen und Büschen rinnt,
Da wirst du die schönsten finden.
Finale
Steig nur, Sonne,
Auf die Höhn!
Schauer wehn,
Und die Erde bebt vor Wonne.
Kühn nach oben
Greift aus Nacht
Waldespracht,
Noch von Träumen kühl durchwoben ...
Scherzo
Stay with us! our playmates await but our call
to join our moonlight prancing,
ten thousand glowworms illumine the hall,
the crickets play to our dancing.
There pleasure, our princess, lies in her bower
‘mid blossoms with odours teeming:
the moonbeams o’er silver each op’ning flower,
come, youth, where our Queen lies dreaming!
Finale
Rise, sun,
onto the heights!
Showers blow,
and earth writhes blissfully.
Boldly upwards
spreads from night
forest’s splendour,
yet coolly interweaved by dreams ...
One year previously, Lehmann had conducted a Berlin studio recording of Reger’s Eine
Lustspielouvertüre, Op. 120 of 1911, a Comedy Overture which has never attained the popularity
of the sister-work composed by Ferruccio Busoni some years previously. The reason is simple –
the contrapuntal textures provided by Reger were quite a different matter for the performers who
simply required more rehearsal time – in the past as in the present day, a serious drawback to a
work’s popularity. Which does not mean that the composition isn’t a most spirited work of art,
taking up the best qualities of the Hiller Variations, Op. 100 and foreshadowing the Ballet Suite.
The Ballet Suite, Op. 130 was another product from Reger’s Meiningen years, written one year
after the Romantic Suite. In it, Reger enforced his increasingly concept of critical “condensation”
(a technique already found in earlier substantial compositions such as the Sinfonietta or the Violin
Concerto, Op. 101), deleting one movement altogether after it had already been engraved. In the
Ballet Suite, Reger relates to the figures of the commedia dell’arte, a feature that just went back
into fashion during the days of composition. The deleted movement was devoted to one more of
the commedia dell’arte characters, Pantalon, Harlequin’s opponent in the love matters concerning
Colombine, Pierrot and Pierrette being another love-couple of the commedia dell’arte. With Valse
d’amour Reger wrote a comparatively popular piece which was for some time regularly performed
in the light music sector and which Reger also arranged for piano solo (as early as 1914 there were
already arrangements of this movement for small and salon orchestra, and a version for violin and
piano was published in 1933). The first complete studio recording of the work was made in occupied
Amsterdam by the Concertgebouw Orkest, conducted by Eduard van Beinum, the orchestra’s
co-principal conductor alongside Willem Mengelberg. Van Beinum’s way with the orchestra
was altogether different from Mengelberg’s, who was an absolute autocrat, while van Beinum
understood his musicians as partners rather than subordinates. Furthermore, van Beinum detested
the Nazis and kept himself as aloof as he could; that he at the same time was an ardent performer
of Reger (who had once had a strong controversy with Mengelberg on the first performance of the
Concert im alten Styl op. 123) and made two studio recordings of his orchestral music, is caused by
the fact that the compositions of Reger, who died in 1916, were attempted to be misused by the Nazi
forces but at the same time had a complexity and a wealth of modern compositional techniques that
simply would not do for the intended purposes.
The other van Beinum Reger recording for Deutsche Grammophon was the Mozart Variations,
Op. 132, Reger’s most popular work, which had already received its first complete recording in
1937 by Karl Böhm (with the Dresden Staatskapelle); another recording made in 1942 in Paris by
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