Reger's Bach and Historicist Modernism

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classicism has tended to overshadow histori-cist modernism, an earlier and soberer, butequally fascinating, phenomenon.1

Brahms plays a key role in the developmentof historicist modernism. He showed how tech-niques of the remote past could be put in theservice of a musical language both expressiveand original. His a cappella sacred vocal works,steeped in Renaissance and Baroque principles,

Reger’s Bach and Historicist Modernism

WALTER FRISCH

Most accounts of Austro-German music fromabout 1885 until 1915, or roughly from thedeath of Wagner until the start of World War I,still tend to focus on chromaticism and atonal-ity as the barometers of emergent modernism.Only more recently have we begun to under-stand that early modernism was a many-splendored thing, not restricted to late Mahler,Schoenberg and his pupils, and Strauss throughElektra. One particularly rich vein of this pe-riod that has yet to be fully mined is whatmight be called historicist modernism, incor-porating music written in the years around 1900that derives its compositional and aesthetic en-ergy not primarily from an impulse to be New,but from a deep and sophisticated engagementwith music of the past. I am not referring hereto neoclassicism, a term that normally con-notes a repertory and practices associated withStravinsky, Hindemith, and other composersof the 1920s and 30s. Often brash and cosmo-politan—and self-consciously au courant—neo-

1Accounts of neoclassicism can be found in Scott Messing,Neoclassicism in Music: From the Genesis of the Conceptthrough the Schoenberg/Stravinsky Polemic (Ann Arbor:UMI Research Press, 1988); Stephen Hinton, The Idea ofGebrauchsmusik: A Study of Musical Aesthetics in theWeimar Republic (1919–1933) with Particular Referenceto the Works of Paul Hindemith (New York: Garland,1989); Richard Taruskin, “Back to Whom? Neoclassicismas Ideology” (a review essay on the foregoing), this journal16 (1993), 286–302; and “Historical Re� ection and Refer-ence in Twentieth-Century Music: Neoclassicism and Be-yond,” a special segment of Journal of Musicology 9 (1991),411–97, with articles by J. Peter Burkholder, Joseph N.Straus, Marianne Kielian-Gilbert, and Scott Messing.

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are of course prime examples, but the mostextraordinary and in� uential product of his his-toricist imagination is the � nale of the FourthSymphony from 1885. With its unique fusionof ancient and contemporary practice, thispassacaglia had a profound impact on subse-quent composers. Schoenberg, Berg, Webern,Reger, and Zemlinsky all wrote pieces modeledafter or partially inspired by Brahms’s � nale.2

Max Reger understood perhaps better thanany other composer of his generation that forBrahms the music of the past was not a crutchbut a creative stimulus. “What assures Brahmsimmortality,” he wrote in 1896 (and reiteratedin later years), “is never and will never be hisreliance on old masters, but the fact that heknew how to produce new, unimagined psy-chological [seelisch] moods on the basis of hisown psychological makeup.”3

One could say much the same for Reger’shistoricist modernism, which is modeled onthat of Brahms and which is most evident inhis attitudes toward and assimilation of themusic of J. S. Bach. Reger’s reception of Bachexempli� es an important development in theyears around 1900, when Bach began to edgeout Beethoven as a principal model for manycomposers in Austria and Germany. As RudolfStephan has observed, Bach’s music came torepresent both an Altklassik alongside theKlassik and a pathway forward among the manycrosscurrents of modernism.4

In this article I would like to investigateReger’s historicist modernism, � rst by sketch-ing aspects of contemporary Bach reception andexamining Reger’s activities in that context,then discussing in greater detail two composi-tions from different periods of his career, hisFirst Suite for Organ, op. 16 (1895), and hisBach Variations for Piano, op. 81 (1904).

IThe signs of engagement with Bach around

1900, many and diverse, intensi� ed a nine-teenth-century trend, which had begun withForkel and continued with Wagner, Spitta, andmany others, of seeing Bach as embodiment ofthe German spirit.5 One practical goal was toget Bach’s works actively into the repertory ofperformers in both secular and sacred and pro-fessional and nonprofessional contexts. TheNeue Bach-Gesellschaft came into being on 27January 1900, as successor to the old one, withthe goal (as stated in its bylaws) “to make theworks of the great German composer JohannSebastian Bach a creative force among the Ger-man people and in those countries that areopen to serious German music, and in particu-lar to make his sacred works useful for theworship service.”6 To that end, the NBG beganpublishing the Bach-Jahrbuch (which � rst ap-peared in 1904), initiated a series of moveableBach festivals to be held in different localesevery few years, and planned editions of bothinstrumental and sacred vocal works “für denpraktischen Gebrauch.”7

The � rst two decades of the twentieth cen-tury would see a rash of publications assessingor advocating Bach’s position with the modern

2Schoenberg, “Nacht,” from Pierrot lunaire (1912), andPassacaglia for Orchestra (fragment from 1926); Berg,Altenberg Lieder, op. 4, no. 5 (1912); Webern, Passacagliafor Orchestra, op. 1 (1908); Reger, � nale of First OrganSuite, op. 16 (1895); Zemlinsky, � nale of Symphony in B(1897).3Cited in Johannes Lorenzen, Max Reger als BearbeiterBachs (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf and Härtel, 1982), p. 86 (trans.mine). Unless otherwise noted, all translations from theGerman are my own.4Rudolf Stephan, “Max Regers Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert:Über ihre Herkunft und Wirkung,” in Musiker derModerne: Porträts und Skizzen, ed. Albrecht Riethmüller(Laaber: Laaber, 1996), p. 37. Stephan’s are among the mostthoughtful writings on Bach reception among German com-posers around 1900. See also his “Johann Sebastian Bachund die Anfänge der Neuen Musik,” in Vom musikalischenDenken: Gesammelte Vorträge, ed. Rainer Damm andAndreas Traub (Mainz: Schott, 1985), pp. 18–24; and“Schoenberg and Bach,” in Schoenberg and His World, ed.Walter Frisch (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999),pp. 126–40.

5For a summary of this phenomenon, see MichaelHeinemann and Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen, “Der ‘deutsche’Bach,” in Bach und die Nachwelt, ed. Heinemann andHinrichsen, vol. II (Laaber: Laaber, 1999), pp. 11–28. Seealso the still valuable study by Friedrich Blume, Two Cen-turies of Bach: An Account of Changing Taste (New York:Da Capo, 1978).6“Satzungen der Neuen Bachgesellschaft,” in ArnoldSchering, Die neue Bachgesellschaft, 1900–1910 (Leipzig:Breitkopf and Härtel, 1911), p. 21.7See Schering, Die neue Bachgesellschaft, for details on allthe early activities and publications of the NBG. I amgrateful to Steven Crist for alerting me to this pamphletand to Christoph Wolff for securing a copy from the Bach-Archiv in Leipzig.



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world. In its inaugural issue in the fall of 1901,the journal Die Musik featured as its lead ar-ticle “Johann Sebastian Bach und die DeutscheMusik der Gegenwart,” by Wilibald Nagel, acritic-historian from Darmstadt. Besides rehash-ing the idea of Bach as national icon, Nagelsounds a note that would become very charac-teristic of Bach reception: Bach as healthy, asrestorative within a culture that was seen bymany as decadent or sick. He argues that theartistic world is dominated by Sensation, by anemphasis on the sensuous, for which Bach couldhelp provide a “Wiedergesundung.”8

Four years later, the editors of Die Musikwould follow up on Nagel’s theme by conduct-ing a full-� edged survey on the question “Wasist mir Johann Sebastian Bach und was bedeuteter für unsere Zeit?” (What does Johann SebastianBach mean to me and what is his importancefor our era?). Opinions were sought from virtu-ally every major living � gure in music, notonly those within the Austro-German spherelike Mahler, Reger, Schillings, Artur Nikisch,and Guido Adler, but also the farther-� ungSibelius, Glazunov, Debussy, Leoncavallo,Puccini, Grieg, MacDowell, and Elgar. Amongthe responses (received from about half of thosecontacted), to which Die Musik devoted al-most an entire issue, the metaphor associatedwith Bach by Nagel in 1901—that of health—surfaces with striking frequency.9

In his response to the survey, AlbertSchweitzer stressed the more religious and mys-tical side of Bach: Bach as Tröster, as com-forter. Yet a few years later, he may be said tohave put his two pfennig into the discussionre� ected in the pages of Die Musik. In theGerman edition of his Bach study, published in1908, Schweitzer added at the very end the plea

that “Bach help our age to attain the spiritualunity and fervour of which it so sorely standsin need.”10 This sentence does not appear inthe original French edition of 1905.

In 1913 August Halm would publish his Vonzwei Kulturen der Musik, the � rst modern studyto place the “culture” of Bach’s fugal polyphonyon an equal status (and in a dialectical relation-ship) with that of Beethoven’s sonata forms.Halm analyzes a number of Bach themes fortheir organic growth and integrity, for their“spiritual, biological unity,” and for their pow-erful “life force” or Lebenskraft.11 Halm’s workhad a direct in� uence on that of his friendErnst Kurth, whose Grundlagen des linearenKontrapunkts appeared in 1917. For Kurth, Bachis the greatest manifestation of the way in whicha dynamically � owing melodic line can gener-ate larger polyphonic and formal structures.Expanding on Halm’s view of the generativepowers of Bach’s melodies, he attempts to dem-onstrate “kinetic energy” in individual phrasesor passages from Bach’s works.12

The critic Paul Bekker, in an essay of 1919entitled “Neue Musik,” cites Kurth favorablyand characterizes the awareness of Bach asMelodist as a key feature of the modern era inmusic:

Our position vis a vis Bach is . . . a very different onefrom that of the earlier generations. We see in Bachnot only the great master of contrapuntal technique,we see in him not only the powerful tone poet; wealso see in him principally the unmatched shaper ofmelodies. His melodic art was founded in an unprec-edented power of linear musical sensibility, for whichlater eras despite their Bach cult had little regard.13

8Willibald Nagel, “Johann Sebastian Bach und die DeutscheMusik der Gegenwart,” Die Musik 1/1 (1901), 207. Nagel’sarticle and other aspects of Bach reception in the yearsbefore World War I are treated in Wolfgang Rathert, “Kultund Kritik: Aspekte der Bach-Rezeption vor dem ErstenWeltkrieg,” in Bach und die Nachwelt, vol. III (Laaber:Laaber, 2000), pp. 23–61.9“Was ist mir Johann Sebastian Bach und was bedeutet erfür unsere Zeit?” Die Musik 5/1 (1905), 3–78. For furtherdiscussion of this survey, see Walter Frisch, “Bach, Brahms,and the Emergence of Musical Modernism,” in Bach Per-spectives 3, ed. Michael Marissen (Lincoln: University ofNebraska Press, 1998), pp. 126–29.

10Albert Schweitzer, J. S. Bach, trans. [from the Germanedn.] Ernest Newman (Boston: Humphries, 1911), vol. II,p. 468.11August Halm, Von zwei Kulturen der Musik (3rd edn.Stuttgart: Klett, 1947), pp. 206, 218.12See Ernst Kurth, Selected Writings, ed. and trans. Lee A.Rothfarb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991),for excerpts from Grundlagen. For an assessment of Kurth’sthought, see, in addition to Rothfarb’s illuminating com-ments in that volume, his Ernst Kurth as Theorist andAnalyst (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,1988).13Paul Bekker, “Neue Musik,” in his Neue Musik (Stuttgart:Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1923), pp. 100–01.



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For Bekker, Bach’s melodic art could showthe way to a modern musical language not bymere imitation or “super� cial” adoption, butonly when “the spirit of a new age can recog-nize and readapt stylistic elements of an olderart.” Bekker is calling not for neoclassicism,but for a profound historical-structural engage-ment with music of the past, especially Bach’s.The one composer he mentions speci� cally inthis context is Reger, whom he calls “the � rstto make reference in his art to that past whichfor us, insofar as we want to connect with apast at all, is the most fruitful; he was the � rstto reach beyond the classic-romantic models toBach.”14

Bekker anticipates the remarks of Stephancited above in positing Bach as an alternativearound 1900 to the standard “classic-roman-tic” models. In his description of adapting olderstyles “in the spirit of a new age” Bekker alsoprovides as plausible a characterization of his-toricist modernism in music—and of the roleof Reger’s Bach reception within it—as we mightwant. We need not worry the concept of his-toricism in its many Germanic guises, a topicthat has � lled many books.15 But we mightturn brie� y to Carl Dahlhaus’s concise accountof musical historicism, which he sees as dialec-tically divided in the nineteenth century intotwo basic attitudes, “tradition” and “restora-tion.” In the � rst, “past and present form anindissoluble alloy.” The past is not alienated orviewed as something foreign; rather, “pastthings form an essential part of the present.”Many works of Brahms, which impart a senseof identi� cation that indicates continuity,would seem to capture this kind of historicism.“Restoration,” however, implies the acknowl-edgment of a gulf that must be bridged in anact of understanding.16 Reger’s music often

seems to be an act of restoration. He is reach-ing back, often obsessively or desperately, tothe world of Bach that is acknowledged as pastand that must be reconstituted in contempo-rary terms.

IIReger’s response to the 1905 survey in Die

Musik on the contemporary signi� cance of Bachreads as follows:

Sebastian Bach is for me the beginning and end of allmusic; upon him rests, and from him originates, allreal progress!

What does—pardon, what should—Sebastian Bachmean for our era?

A really powerful, inexhaustible medicine, notonly for all those composers and musicians whosuffer from “misunderstood Wagner,” but for all those“contemporaries,” who suffer from spinal maladiesof any kind. To be “Bachian” means: to be authenti-cally German, unyielding.

That Bach could be misunderstood for so long, isthe greatest scandal for the “critical wisdom” of theeighteenth and nineteenth centuries.17

Reger touches here on virtually all the majorthemes of contemporary Bach reception—Bachas progressive, Bach as German, Bach as sturdy,Bach as healthy. But his relationship with Bachwent far beyond fervent admiration; it ap-proached what Johannes Lorenzen has aptlycalled “monomaniacal identi� cation.” Reger’sletters and reported comments are full of refer-ences to “Allvater Bach,” on whom he wouldcall in times of need. In 1902 Reger describedto his � ancée Elsa his work on an arrangementof Bach’s Cantata 93 (“Wer nur den lieben Gottläßt walten”) as a “spiritual chalybeate bath

14Bekker, “Neue Musik,” pp. 102, 100.15See Georg G. Iggers, The German Conception of History:The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herderto the Present (rev. edn. Wesleyan: Wesleyan UniversityPress, 1983); and Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On theSemantics of Historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe (Cam-bridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985).16Carl Dahlhaus, Foundations of Music History, trans. J. B.Robinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983),pp. 70, 67. On musical historicism, see also Die Aus-breitung des Historismus über die Musik, ed. Walter Wiora

(Regensburg: Bosse, 1969); and Leo Treitler, Music and theHistorical Imagination (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-versity Press, 1989).17“Seb. Bach ist für mich Anfang und Ende aller Musik;auf ihm ruht und fusst jeder wahre Fortschritt! Was Seb.Bach für unsere Zeit bedeutet—pardon—bedeuten sollte?Ein gar kräftigliches, nie versiegendes Heilmittel nicht nurfür alle jene Komponisten und Musiker, die an‘missverstandenem Wagner’ erkrankt sind, sondern für allejene ‘Zeitgenossen,’ die an Rückenmarksschwindsucht jederArt leiden. ‘Bachisch’ sein heisst : urgermanisch,unbeugsam sein. Dass Bach so lange verkannt sein konnte,ist die grösste Blamage für die ‘kritische Weisheit’des 18.und 19. Jahrhunderts” (Die Musik 5/1 [1905], 74).



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[Stahlbad].”18 Bach became an essential com-panion to a composer who was plagued by self-doubt, was physically and psychically restless,suffered from alcoholism, and composed andperformed with compulsive prolixity. AntoniusBittmann has related Reger’s personality andhis musical style to a �n-de-siècle culture ob-sessed with, and often characterized by, ner-vousness—or, as it was often called around 1900,neurasthenia.19

Lorenzen has given us what is undoubtedlythe most complete picture to date of Reger’sBach-P�ege as re� ected in the vast array ofarrangements and transcriptions. These covervirtually all genres and span almost Reger’sentire career, from 1895 to 1916. The numbersare astonishing: Reger edited, arranged, or tran-scribed 428 individual pieces by Bach. No othercomposer since Bach himself was so deeply,indeed pathologically, involved with his works.

Reger’s activity in this sphere can be sum-marized as follows:

� thirty-four arrangements of Bach organ works,for either piano two-hands or four-hands, orfor two pianos. These include larger works likepreludes or toccatas and fugues, as well as cho-rale preludes.

� thirty-� ve arrangements for organ of Bach key-board works. These include some Preludes andFugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier, theTwo-Part Inventions, and the Chromatic Fan-tasy and Fugue.

� fourteen arrangements of Bach’s orchestralworks for four-hand piano or for chamber en-semble, including the Orchestral Suites andthe Brandenburg Concertos.

� seven arrangements of solo concertos, oftenfor chamber ensemble, or with piano reduc-tion of the orchestral part.

� two arrangements of Bach’s violin sonatas forviolin and piano.

� two arrangements of Bach’s cantatas, with re-alized organ part.20

We can add to this list Reger’s edition ofBach’s keyboard works prepared with AugustSchmid-Lindner for Schott and his revision ofJoseph Rheinberger’s two-piano arrangement ofthe “Goldberg” Variations.

Reger’s Bach arrangements and transcriptionshad varying purposes. Some of the earliest tran-scriptions of organ works for the piano, from1895 and 1896, were virtuoso pieces destinedfor concert use, much in the mode of Busoni(whose transcriptions were a direct inspirationfor Reger) or d’Albert. Also intended for theconcert hall were some of the arrangements ofthe concertos and orchestral music for smallerensembles. The four-hand arrangements of theBrandenburg Concertos (and of some of the or-gan works) were offered as Hausmusik. Thetranscriptions of the two-part inventions fororgan and of selected chorale preludes for pianowere for instructional use. The cantata arrange-ments and some of the transcriptions for organof keyboard works were intended for the Prot-estant liturgy.21

Lorenzen locates Reger’s Bach-related activi-ties directly under the rubric of historicism,which was a fundamental part of Reger’s artis-tic formation with Hugo Riemann, with whomhe studied from 1890 to 1895. That a composerof Reger’s ability should have as his principalteacher not another composer, but a musicolo-gist—moreover a musicologist of the status andauthority of Riemann—does indeed constitute,as Lorenzen says, a “unique constellation.”22

But ultimately Reger’s Bach was notRiemann’s Bach. For Riemann, Bach was partof a formidable past that was being brought tolight by historical research and that had to beabsorbed into the music of the present. “Be-hind Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn, nowGluck, Handel, and Bach have risen again as

18Johannes Lorenzen, Max Reger als Bearbeiter Bachs, pp.55, 52.19Antoninus Bittmann, Negotiating Past and Present: MaxReger and Fin-de-siècle Modernisms (Ph.D. diss., EastmanSchool of Music, 2000), chap. 7. On Reger’s Bach recep-tion, see also Helmut Wirth, “Der Ein� uß von JohannSebastian Bach auf Max Regers Schaffen,” in Max Reger1873–1973: Ein Symposion, ed. Klaus Röhring (Wiesbaden:Breitkopf and Härtel, 1974), pp. 3–20; and FriedhelmKrummacher, “Auseinandersetzung im Abstand: ÜberRegers Verhältnis zu Bach,” in Reger-Studien 5, ed. SusanneShigihara (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf and Härtel, 1993), pp. 11–39.

20For more details, see Lorenzen, Max Reger als BearbeiterBachs, pp. 18–25.21See Lorenzen, Max Reger als Bearbeiter Bachs, pp. 59–60.22Ibid., p. 30.



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the � rst great masters of the most recent past,”Riemann intoned in “Degeneration und Regen-eration in der Musik,” a broadside of 1907 aimedat contemporary music. “And behind them inturn rise up Palestrina and Lasso as witnessesof a period that lies still further in the past, andthe greatness of whose music, which at � rstsounds strange to us, must be, and will be,exemplary for the music of the present andfuture, just as the art of the Renaissance andAntiquity are for the visual arts.”23 All thissounds very much like a musicologist placing aclammy and restrictive hand on the music ofhis own time. Reger broke publicly withRiemann over the “Degeneration” article. In aresponse, he proudly included himself amongthe “moderns” like Strauss and endorsed a vi-sion of music in which one could revere theolder masters and still “ride to the left,” a meta-phor that he takes from—and turns against—Riemann.24

IIIReger’s own compositions give a better pic-

ture of this left-tilting historicism than eitherhis arrangements or his polemical writings. Itseems clear that the � ood of organ works thatissued from Reger for about a decade, from themid-1890s until 1905, were part of a deter-mined attempt to forge a modernist style in theimage of Bach, the composer most closely asso-ciated with the instrument. Heinrich Reimann,a leading writer on music and one of the mostrenowned organists of the time, urged all play-ers and prospective composers for organ to steepthemselves in the style of Bach. He wrote in1894, using the metaphor of health or safetythat would dominate the responses to the 1905survey: “Beyond this style there is no salvation[Heil] . . . Bach becomes for that reason thecriterion of our art of writing for the organ.”25

At this point in his career, Reger steeredclear of the genres in which the major musico-political battles of the later nineteenth centurywere being fought. He avoided the post-Wagne-rian symphonic poem and music drama, culti-vated by Strauss, Schillings, and P� tzner. Afteran initial � urry of chamber music (ops. 1, 2, 3,5, from 1890 to 1892), Reger created little inthat medium until after 1900. He thus may besaid also to have avoided at this point continu-ing the tradition strongly associated withBrahms, where � gures like the youngZemlinsky, Schoenberg, and countless Brahmsepigones (Robert Fuchs and Heinrich vonHerzogenberg, for example) located themselves.In organ music Reger found an area that offeredrich possibilities because it was largelyunplowed.

Most commentators recognize the summitof Reger’s Bach reception in the so-calledWeiden organ works, written between 1898 and1901, when he returned to live with his parentsand be treated for nervous exhaustion and alco-holism. These colossal pieces include threeChorale Fantasies (ops. 27, 30, and 40); threeFantasies and Fugues (op. 29; the Fantasy andFugue on BACH, op. 46; and the SymphonicFantasy and Fugue, op. 57); and two sonatas(ops. 33 and 60).26 I would like to focus on twoBach-inspired works composed on either sideof the Weiden period, the First Organ Suite, op.16, and the Bach Variations for Piano, op. 81,which together provide an equally rich pictureof Reger’s historicist modernism.

Reger completed his Suite for Organ in EMinor, op. 16, on 23 July 1895, near the end ofhis formal study with Riemann. He had begunthe work in 1894 as a “sonata” in three move-ments, comprising an introduction and triplefugue; an Adagio based on the chorale “Es istdas Heil uns kommen her”; and a passacaglia.The work evolved into a “suite” in four move-ments, although the Suite in fact resembles a

23Hugo Riemann, “Degeneration und Regeneration in derMusik,” in Max Hesses Deutscher Musikerkalender fürdas Jahr 1908, rpt. in “Die Konfusion in der Musik”: FelixDraeseke’s Kampschrift von 1906 und ihre Folgen, ed.Susanne Shigihara (Bonn: Gudrun Schröder, 1990), p. 249.24Max Reger, “Degeneration und Regeneration in derMusik,” Neue Musik-Zeitung 29 (1907); rpt. in “DieKonfusion in der Musik,” pp. 250–58.25Cited in Hermann Wilske, Max Reger—Zur Rezeption inseiner Zeit (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf and Härtel, 1995), p. 104.

26Other instrumental works directly inspired by Bach in-clude the Preludes and Fugues for Solo Violin, ops. 117and 131a.



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sonata.27 The Adagio was expanded to a ternaryform, of which the middle part incorporatestwo more chorales, “Aus tiefer Not” and thePassion Chorale, “O Haupt voll Blut undWunden.” Between the original second and thirdmovements Reger added an Intermezzo in theform of a scherzo with trio.

Reger dedicated his Suite not, as was to behis practice, to a living � gure he admired, but“To the Memory of Johann Sebastian Bach”(Den Manen Johann Sebastian Bachs). The work,which appeared in 1896, was given its premiereby Reger’s friend, the virtuoso organist KarlStraube on 4 March 1897, in Berlin. The stronglyhistoricist orientation of the score was remarkedby critics, including one reviewer in theMonthly Musical Record, who noted that the“boldness” of the inscription to Bach was “inlarge measure justi� ed” by Reger’s “knowledgeof harmony, of counterpoint, canon, and fugue,and of part-writing generally.”28 Reger himselfthought the Suite was the best thing he hadcomposed up to that time.29 Seeking a wideraudience for it than it might receive as an or-gan work, he arranged it for piano four-hands,as one might a symphony.30

Reger alluded to the signi� cance of the Or-gan Suite in a letter he wrote to Riemann inAugust 1895, as the latter was leavingWiesbaden and as Reger’s formal instructionwith him came to a close: “As a young musi-cian, who, full of the noblest enthusiasm, con-tinued to serve only his masters Bach,Beethoven, and Brahms and to absorb themwithin himself, I ask your permission that thisyoung unknown musician may give you andyour wife once again the most heartfelt andbest thanks. . . . As your student I will notbring you any dishonor. As proof you must get

to know my Organ Suite (with Passacaglia).(Bach varied the theme 21 times in his; I havedone it 32 times.)”31

In the spring of 1896, Reger felt suf� cientlycon� dent to send a copy of the Suite to his idol,Brahms. This was the occasion of his only di-rect contact with the older composer, whowould die the following April. In his accompa-nying letter, Reger asked Brahms’s permissionto dedicate to him a symphony in progress (awork that was never completed). Brahms re-plied with the following note:

Dear Sir! I give you heartfelt thanks for yourletter, whose warm, indeed too friendly, words werevery sympathetic to me. Moreover, you spoil mewith the lovely offer of a dedication.

Permission for that is certainly not necessary,however! I had to smile, since you approach meabout this matter and at the same time enclose awork whose all-too-bold dedication terri�es me!

You may then without concern set down thename of your most respectful

J. Brahms.32

Brahms provided no comments on the Suite,but he did enclose an autographed picture ofhimself and asked the young composer to re-ciprocate.33

Brahms might have been “terri� ed” by notonly the dedication of the suite to Bach—onecould scarcely imagine him doing somethingsimilar—but also by the close associations witha work of his own. Reger’s Suite concludeswith a passacaglia in E minor that bears more

27The terminology was fairly � uid in the nineteenth cen-tury as far as multimovement organ works. Reger evenquipped that “our organ sonatas are really closer to suites”(cited in Martin Weyer, Die Orgelwerke Max Regers[Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noetzel, 1989], p. 31).28Anonymous review of 1 July 1896, rpt. in Der jungeReger: Briefe und Dokumente vor 1900, ed. Susanne Popp(Wiesbaden: Breitkopf and Härtel, 2000), p. 275.29Max Reger, Briefe eines deutschen Meisters: EinLebensbild, ed. Else von Hase-Koehler (Leipzig: Koehler &Amelang, 1928), p. 54.30Despite Reger’s strong advocacy, the arrangement wasnot published. See Der junge Reger, pp. 280–82.

31Der junge Reger, p. 246. Reger refers of course to Bach’sPassacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582, a work hearranged for four-hand piano at this time (see Lorenzen,Max Reger als Bearbeiter Bachs, p. 18). By counting twenty-one variations in Bach, Reger seems to consider the initialthematic statement as a variation. In the Bach there aretwenty-one total statements of the theme, and twenty ac-tual “variations.” Reger seems to reckon his ownpassacaglia in a similar way; yet he is nonetheless in error,unless he is referring to an earlier version of the passacagliathat no longer survives. Reger’s movement, as it appearsin the original manuscript and in printed editions, hastwenty-nine variations, or thirty total statements of thetheme. It is hard to see how he comes up with the numberthirty-two.32Der junge Reger, p. 265. The letter is misdated as March1897 in Briefe eines deutschen Meisters, pp. 54–55.33The photographs exchanged by Brahms and Reger arereproduced in Der junge Reger, p. 274.



303


than a passing resemblance to the � nale ofBrahms’s Fourth Symphony. Reger’s � nale is infact an extraordinary synthesis of past andpresent, drawing on Bach’s C-Minor Passacaglia(the model acknowledged by Reger in his lettercited above) and on the � nales of JosephRheinberger’s Organ Sonata No. 8, op. 132(1882), and Brahms’s Fourth Symphony, bothalso in the key of E minor.

As Martin Weyer has shown, Reger’s Suitefollows closely the structure of Rheinberger’sSonata No. 8, which has as its � rst movementan Introduction and Fugue in E minor; as itssecond or slow movement an “Intermezzo”marked Andante (in E major); as the third a“scherzoso” in A minor; and as a � nale apassacaglia.34 The similarities extend to numer-ous details as well. Both introductions beginwith tonic pedal points, which are followed bydissonant chromatic chords and scalar � our-ishes. The principal fugue themes are close inshape. In both works material from the slowintroduction is brought back at the end of thepassacaglia.

Besides following the “sonata” model ofRheinberger, Reger might be said to adopt the“symphonic” design of Brahms, as manifestedin the � rst three symphonies, in which theouter movements are the largest and most im-posing, while the two interior ones are on asmaller, more intimate scale. The model ofBrahms’s Fourth Symphony lies—remotely, butsigni� cantly—behind the larger plan of Reger’sSuite. The key signatures of Reger’s four move-ments match precisely those of Brahms: onesharp in the outer movements, � ve sharps forthe Adagio, and no sharps or � ats for the Inter-mezzo. Three of Reger’s movements do in factshare Brahms’s keys: E minor for � rst move-ment and � nale, and B major for the Adagio.

I would like to look in some more detail attwo movements from Reger’s Suite, the slowmovement and � nale. The Adagio assai is atonce a Classical-Romantic slow movement witha ternary form (ABA) and a composite neo-Baroque chorale prelude. The chorale on whichthe A segment (the original slow movement ofthe 1894 sonata) is based, “Es ist das Heil uns

kommen her,” never appears in a purely me-lodic form, but is elaborately decorated in theupper voice (ex. 1; chorale tune added aboveexample). The models for this portion of Reger’smovement seem to be the chorale preludes fromBach’s Orgelbüchlein that have been called “or-namental,” where the tune appears in the so-prano part complete and continuous, but highlyembellished. These preludes would include“Das alte Jahr vergangen ist” (BWV 614), “OMensch, bewein dein Sünde gross” (BWV 622),and “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein” (BWV641).35

“O Mensch” must have been Reger’s pri-mary inspiration. In the Bach-Gesellschaft edi-tion that Reger would have known (volume25), this chorale prelude is the one of the fewfrom the Orgelbüchlein to appear with a tempoindication (presumably Bach’s own), Adagioassai, precisely the tempo marking Reger gaveto the A segment of his slow movement. “OMensch” seems moreover to have been one ofReger’s favorite among Bach’s chorale preludes.It took pride of place—as the � rst—in the edi-tion of the thirteen Bach chorale preludes hearranged for solo piano, published in 1900. (Itwas in the preface to this edition that he fa-mously called the chorale preludes of Bach“symphonic poems in miniature.”) In 1915Reger published two different arrangements of“O Mensch” as an instrumental “aria,” one forviolin and keyboard and another for string or-chestra.36

Rudolf Huesgen points to what he calls aParsifalstimmung in the A segment of Reger’sAdagio and at the same time identi� es an “ex-alted religious mysticism, such as we sense inthe St. Matthew Passion and in certain canta-tas by Bach.”37 Indeed, Wagner and Bach, who

34Weyer, Orgelwerke, p. 17.

35See Russell Stinson, Bach: The Orgelbüchlein (New York:Schirmer, 1996), pp. 70–73.36See Lorenzen, Reger als Bearbeiter, p. 20. The arrange-ment for string orchestra has been given a ravishing (ifslow) recording by Dennis Russell Davies and the StuttgartChamber Orchestra (Dabringhaus and Grimm, MDG 3210940-2). The similarity of Reger’s Adagio to Bach’s “OMensch” is noted by Rudolf Huesgen (Der junge Regerund seine Orgelwerke [Inaugural-diss., Freiburg, 1935], p.72), who, however, does not comment on either the strik-ing identity of tempo indication or Reger’s later arrange-ments of the chorale prelude.37Huesgen, Der junge Reger, p. 72.



304

19TH

CENTURYMUSIC

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305


Più andanteII 8’ 4’

16’ 8’

I 8’ 4’

(II)

(“Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir”)

poco a poco

11

15

(II)

(I)

sempre poco a poco crescendo e stringendo

crescendo

join hands in certain moments of Meistersingerand Parsifal, are both plausible inspirations forReger’s Adagio, which, however, is character-ized by a thicker and busier contrapuntal tex-ture than either of his predecessors would haveprovided in such an instance.

The contrasting B section of Reger’s Adagio,in B minor, is in two parts, each based on adifferent chorale, “Aus tiefer Not” and the Pas-sion chorale (“O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden”),respectively.38 The two chorales are developedsuccessively—and in different ways—and arethen combined in counterpoint. “Aus tieferNot” is treated by Reger fugally in as many assix parts (ex. 2; chorale text added by me). Regeralso manages to � t in stretto (m. 16) and aug-mentation (mm. 17–18). Reger’s elaborate treat-ment of “Aus tiefer Not” alludes directly and

Example 2: Max Reger, Organ Suite, op. 16, movt. II (with chorale text added).

unmistakably to Bach’s own chorale preludeon the same tune from part III of theClavierübung (BWV 686). This is the mostelaborately contrapuntal of Bach’s chorale pre-ludes, in which the chorale is likewise treatedin six-part imitation through the use of a doublepedal.

Reger develops the chorale tune “Aus tieferNot” for sixteen measures, modulating to thedominant, F . After this densely polyphonic dis-course comes a long fermata, and the Passionchorale begins as a solo line, marked “Adagio(recitativo)” (ex. 3). Reger has gone from themost “instrumental” of textures and styles tothe most vocal. In this section, phrases of thePassion chorale alternate between a recitativemanner and fuller � ve-part writing that isclearly meant to imitate choral style. Just asReger’s treatment of “Aus tiefer Not” brings tomind Bach’s six-part chorale prelude, so his useof the Passion chorale reminds us of the St.Matthew Passion, where it plays a starring role.In the B section of his Adagio, then, Regerseeks to embrace both sides of Bach—Bach theinstrumental composer-contrapuntalist andBach the composer of sacred vocal music. In

38To avoid confusion, I refer to this chorale tune by themore general designation, as the Passion chorale, follow-ing J. S. Bach, ed. Malcolm Boyd (Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press, 1999), p. 361, because it is associated in Bach’swork with several different texts (including, in the St.Matthew Passion, “O Haupt voll Blut,” “Herzlich tut michverlangen,” and “Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden”).



306

19TH

CENTURYMUSIC

I

die Melodie hervortretend36 ritenuto

(II)

II 8’4’

Adagio (recitativo)27

I

a tempo

16’ 8’

Example 3: Max Reger, Organ Suite, op. 16, movt. II, Passion chorale.

Example 4: Max Reger, Organ Suite, op. 16, movt. II,superimposition of “Aus tiefer Not” and Passion chorale.

39In all the literature on Brahms’s passacaglia, I have notseen the Rheinberger movement mentioned as a possiblesource, although it appeared two years before Brahms be-gan to work on his � nale. (For an assessment of the likelyinspirations for Brahms, see Raymond Knapp, “The Finaleof Brahms’s Fourth Symphony: The Tale of the Subject,”this journal 13 [1989], 3–17.) It is certainly possible thatBrahms knew the Rheinberger Sonata. Weyer (DieOrgelwerke, p. 26) adduces as another possible source forReger a passacaglia theme in B minor from an organ workby Gustav Merkel, composed in 1885, which seems toborrow from both Bach and Brahms.

the closing measures of the B section, Regerbrings together the two tunes, “Aus tiefer Not”and the Passion chorale, in a � nal gesture ofcontrapuntal legerdemain (ex. 4).

No one could mistake Reger’s Adagio for awork by Bach, nor for one by Brahms in hishistoricizing, Bachian mode, as in the late Cho-rale Preludes, op. 122 (which were yet to becomposed at the time Reger wrote his Suite).The language and the quality of expression areuniquely those of Reger, whom we sense isconstructing a modern music by delicately han-dling the relics of a beloved past. Reger seemsto acknowledge a gulf between himself and thepast, yet does not wallow in nostalgia. Asthroughout his œuvre, he places a high valueon craft, especially on counterpoint. The coun-terpoint leads to a higher level of ambient dis-sonance than we would � nd in Bach, or even inBrahms. The dissonance creates for the listenera level of discomfort that is clearly intentionalon Reger’s part. The disjunction between thehistorical technique and the sonority it is ma-

nipulated to produce serves to reinforce thepresentness—the modernity, as it were—of themusic and our reception of it.

The � nale of Reger’s E-Minor Suite is lessstrikingly original than the Adagio, but is ifanything more synoptic, drawing on several pre-vious passacaglias (ex. 5). The themes by Bach,Brahms, Rheinberger, and Reger share the triplemeter characteristic of the passacaglia genre andfollow a standard eight-measure pattern.39 FromBach and Rheinberger, Reger adapts the con-



307


a. Bach, Passacaglica, BWV 582

b. Rheinberger, Sonata No. 8, op. 132, � nale (1882)

c. Brahms, Fourth Symphony, � nale (1885)

d. Reger, Organ Suite, op. 16, � nale (1894–95)

Example 5: Passacaglia themes.

their “returns.” At variation 25 Reger returnsthe theme to the bass for the � nal, culminatinggroup of variations.

Another model lies behind Reger’s passa-caglia (as it does behind Brahms’s). This is Bach’sChaconne in D Minor for Solo Violin (BWV1004), which turns to the major mode for aseries of variations almost exactly half-waythrough the movement (a feature shared byneither Bach’s C-Minor Passacaglia nor Rhein-berger’s). As in Bach’s chaconne and Brahms’s� nale, the turn to the major mode is associatedwith softer dynamics and a slowing of therhythm. In all three works—Bach’s chaconneand Brahms’s and Reger’s passacaglias—thesechanges make for a kind of internal slow move-ment.

From Brahms, Reger also takes the conceptof creating real countermelodies that at timesovershadow the passacaglia theme. Brahms be-gins that process already with the second varia-tion, and in the fourth a broad violin melodyemerges, to which the passacaglia theme is nowaccompaniment, or at least subordinate. In his� rst variation, Reger introduces an idea that is,as already noted, treated imitatively. This ideabecomes augmented and transformed into amore genuinely melodic gesture, markedhervortretend by Reger. Other importantcountermelodies are introduced in variations9, in the slower major variations (16 and 18).

tour of large leaps followed by half- or whole-step motion. From Brahms he takes the initialrising stepwise ascent, as well as the introduc-tion of one, and only one, chromatic note (asidefrom the leading tone), A , or the raised fourth.The total number of Reger’s variations (twenty-nine) is closely in line with Brahms (thirty).(Rheinberger, with twenty-four variations plusa coda, lies somewhere in between.)

As in the Bach C-Minor Passacaglia, Reger’s� rst variation introduces rhythmic syncopationin the upper voices. But where Bach abandonsthe syncopation after variation 2, Reger is moresystematic in continuing and developing itacross the � rst � ve variations. A feature ofBach’s C-Minor Passacaglia that Reger may besaid to have adopted via Brahms is moving theostinato in a middle group of variations intothe upper voices, then staging a kind of “re-turn” in the bass. Reger’s procedure in thepassacaglia is again a kind of sophisticated syn-thesis of Bach and Brahms: the ostinato beginsin the bass and remains there until variation12, where, at the � rst dynamic climax (fff), itmoves into the top voice. Then it retreats intothe bass again for the transition to the majorvariations and remains there during the majorvariations. For the return to minor in variation22—a major articulation point in Reger’s move-ment—the theme goes back to the melody, theexact inverse of what Bach and Brahms do at



308

19TH

CENTURYMUSIC

espressivo

sempre assai legato; la melodie sempre dolce (quasi Oboe solo)

sempre con Pedale

( = 66)Andante (quasi Adagio)

A1

5

10

A2

A3 B2

C1 C2molto espressivo poco stringendo a tempo un poco rit.

moltom.g.

sempre espressivomeno

meno e cresc.

(sempre con Ped.)

B1

(sempre con Ped.)

Example 6: Max Reger, Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Bach, op. 81, theme.

IVThe self-critical Reger recognized the Organ

Suite as a milestone in his development as acomposer. Yet in it we sense a young composerof enormous technical ability � exing histori-cist muscles that also seem to get in his way.For all his prowess and imagination, Reger can-not be said, in the Organ Suite, to transcendany of his models, except perhaps in the Ada-gio. By the time he composed the Variationsand Fugue on a Theme of Bach for Piano, op.81, a decade later in 1904, and on the other sideof the Weiden organ works, Reger was in hisfull maturity as a composer. Like the OrganSuite, the Variations were acknowledged byReger as a special work in his compositionaldevelopment. To Karl Straube he wrote that

op. 81 was “the best that I have written up tonow.”40 As in the case of the Suite, such acomment should be taken seriously.

Outside of the theme itself and the � nalfugue there is no hint of neo-Baroquism in op.81, which falls clearly into the tradition ofmonumental piano variations of the nineteenthcentury. Reger’s models were the “Eroica” and“Diabelli” Variations of Beethoven and theHandel Variations of Brahms, along with theUrquelle of all those works, Bach’s “Goldberg”Variations. What immediately distinguishesReger’s op. 81 from any other variation set inthe literature, however, is the nature of the

40Max Reger, Briefe an Karl Straube (Bonn: Dümmler,1986), pp. 61, 63.



309


theme. He uses the entire opening instrumen-tal ritornello of the duet “Sein’ Allmacht zuergründen” from Bach’s Cantata 128, AufChristi Himmelfahrt allein.41 Bach’s ritornello,scored for oboe d’amore and continuo, lacksthe rounded and clearly segmented phrase struc-ture of traditional variation subjects. Its four-teen measures may be said to divide, as withmost Baroque ritornellos, into units that con-tain no large scale returns or repetition, onlysmall internal ones.

The theme has three larger units (ex. 6): A(mm. 1–6), B (mm. 7–10), and C (mm. 11–14).The A unit subdivides into three smallerphrases: A1 (mm. 1–2), which closes on thetonic; A2 (mm. 3–5), which is a parallel oranswering phrase that also moves to the tonic;and a concluding gesture, A3 (mm. 5–6), whichcadences on the dominant minor. The B unithas two parallel phrases, treated as a sequence,of two and a half measures each: B1 (mm. 7–8),which moves to the subdominant minor, andB2 (mm. 9–10), which moves to III, or D major.The � nal unit, C has two broader phrases: the� rst, C1 (mm. 11–12), builds upward to theclimax of the ritornello; the second, C2 (mm.13–14) leads downward to the � nal cadenceand echoes aspects of the melody of B (a down-ward curve).

The ritornello selected by Reger is an en-tirely different creature from the rounded and/or binary themes used by Bach, Beethoven, andBrahms in their variation sets. As Elmar Buddeputs it, Reger’s op. 81 presents a “remarkableparadox: Reger writes variations on a theme onwhich no variations, in the sense of a tradi-tional horizon of expectations, can be written.”42

One might supplement Budde’s paradox in thefollowing way: Reger creates his � nest homageto Bach not by allusion to Bach’s compositionaltechniques or structures, as in the Organ Suite,

but by challenging himself to write variationson an unvariable theme. The text of Bach’sduet, which reads “Sein Allmacht zu ergründen,wird kein Mensche � nden” (No man can fathomHis omnipotence), may be signi� cant in thisregard. By selecting the melody associated withthese words Reger expresses awe of Bach’s owncompositional Allmacht, which no one can pos-sibly comprehend or equal.

The fourteen variations of op. 81 are notnumbered; they are separated from one anotheronly by double bar lines. (See Table 1 for aformal synopsis.) This practice, exceptionalamong Reger’s variations, suggests that thework is to be understood as a more continuous,“organic” composition. One can agree with theMunich critic Alexander Berrsche, who sug-gested that the Bach Variations were“gedichtet,” as compared with Reger’s othergreat solo piano set, the Telemann Variations,op. 134, which were “komponiert.”43

Harmonically, Reger divides his variationsinto two large groups of seven. The � rst groupremains in the tonic, B minor; the second be-gins to modulate, � rst in an abrupt shift to theremote key of the Neapolitan, C major (var. 8),then to B major (var. 9), G minor (var. 10,ending on G major, or V of C ), C minor (var.11, moving to V of B), B major (var. 12), andback to the tonic B minor (vars. 13–14). Thefugue concludes in B major.

Crosscutting this harmonic scheme is an ap-proach to treating the theme that is as uniquein the variation literature up to that time as isthe theme itself. The risk of writing variationson a theme as long, complex, and irregular asthe Bach ritornello (which lasts close to twominutes in performance) is that complete varia-tions will seem too independent and self-con-tained, and will sap the overall � ow of thework. Reger steps up to the challenge by con-stantly changing the kind of variation he writes,from stricter ones that retain the original me-lodic and harmonic structure, to freer fantasy-like variations based on only a motivic frag-ment or two from the ritornello. Such varietyis, to be sure, not unusual in the literature.Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations and Brahms’s

41Reger did not actually seek out this theme himself; itwas suggested (and sent) to him by his friend, the pianistAugust Schmid-Lindner, who was also the dedicatee and� rst performer of the work.42Elmar Budde, “Zeit und Form in Max Regers Variationenund Fuge über ein Thema von Johann Sebastian Bach op.81,” in Reger-Studien 3: Analysen und Quellenstudien,ed. Susanne Popp and Susanne Shigihara (Wiesbaden:Breitkopf and Härtel, 1988), p. 129. Budde’s phrase “hori-zon of expectations” refers to Hans Robert Jauss’s recep-tion theory. 43Cited in Budde, “Zeit und Form,” p. 134.



310

19TH

CENTURYMUSIC

Table 1

Reger, Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Bach, op. 81

FORMAL UNIT MEASURE NO. TEMPO KEY COMMENTS

Theme 1–14 Andante B minor “past”Variation 1 15–28 L’istesso tempo B minor strict; “past”Variation 2 29–42 [slightly faster] B minor strict; “past”Variation 3 43–56 Grave assai ambiguous —> B minor free; “present”Variation 4 57–70 Vivace B minor strict; “past”Variation 5 71–92 Vivace B minor free; “past”Variation 6 93–115 Allegro moderato B minor strict; “past”Variation 7 116–27 Adagio B minor strict; “past”Variation 8 128–45 Vivace C major free; “present”Variation 9 146–55 Grave e sempre molto B major free; “present”

espressivoVariation 10 156–78 Poco vivace G minor free; “present”Variation 11 179–201 Allegro agitato C minor free; “present”Variation 12 202–16 Andante sostenuto B major free; “present”Variation 13 217–40 Vivace B minor free; “present”Variation 14 241–54 Con moto B minor strict; “past”Fugue 255–384 Sostenuto B minor —> major “past” and “present”

Handel Variations also progress from stricter tofreer, although the overall number (or propor-tion) of measures and essential harmonic frame-work of the original theme remain intact. Butin op. 81 Reger avoids any simple trajectory.

In Table 1, the terms “strict” and “free”must be taken as relative, where the formerindicates a variation that follows the originalritornello closely at least as to sequence of the-matic ideas (and often actual number or pro-portion of measures), while the latter abandonsthe ABC formal-thematic structure in signi� -cant ways. In the freer variations, one has theimpression that fragments of the original themeare being cited, recollected, or meditated upon,rather than “varied.” Any attempt on the partof the listener to follow the standard narrativeof a variation set is thus thwarted.

The � rst two variations, which form a pair,remain very close to the theme and to tradi-tional variation technique. The fourteen-mea-sure structure remains intact, as do the melody,harmony, and bass; variation consists princi-pally in the rhythmic animation of the innerparts. Variation 3, however, brings a suddenchange (ex. 7). Reger slows the tempo to Grave

assai, and instead of the theme in the tonic, weget a two-measure sequence of highly ambigu-ous harmony, based on a fragment of the de-scending � gure from the last measure of C2,which has been heard at the end of the previousvariation. Gradually there emerges in the bassa three-note rising chromatic � gure based onA1 (B –C –D , m. 45), whose � rst phrase thenappears complete in its original form in themelody of m. 48.

We might now interpret the preceding mea-sures (43–47) as having been an introduction toa standard variation, but after only one measureA1 is interrupted by a furious, crashingly disso-nant outburst that seems unrelated to any as-pect of the original ritornello (m. 49). The wholeprocess then begins again (not shown in theexample): we return � rst to the introductorymeasures of this variation, based on the frag-ments of C2 and A1, and then once again to thestart of an apparently “real” variation on A1, inthe tonic (m. 53). But as before, only a � rstphrase is allowed to be heard before the fantasy-like C2 interrupts again. Now C2 miraculouslymetamorphoses into its original cadential formand ends the variation on B minor.



311


43

45

47

48

49

( = 25)Grave assai ( = 50)

(C2)

A1

( = 54)

una cordamolto espressivo

molto

( = 44)Poco più mosso

moltopoco

sempre espressivo

(A1)

poco rit.

sempre espressivosempre dolcissimo

( = 48)a tempo

sempre espressivo

sempre con Pedale, ma delicato

poco rit.

“outburst”

sempre con Pedale

molto agitatoe cresc. marcato

trecorde

Example 7: Reger, Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Bach, op. 81, variation 3.



312

19TH

CENTURYMUSIC

Reger the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic tra-ditions, extending from Bach, the author of thetheme, through to Beethoven and Brahms, whowrote monumental keyboard variations towhich Reger pays homage. The freer variationsin op. 81, in which the standard structure isdisrupted by motivic fragmentation or motionto distant harmonic regions, may represent thepresent—the present of 1904. Here contempo-rary music has undergone a kind of Sprachkriseanalogous to what Hofmannsthal described inhis famous Lord Chandos Letter of 1902, inwhich “everything fell into fragments . . . thefragments into further fragments, until itseemed impossible to contain anything at allwithin a single concept.”44 As we have seenabove, Reger acknowledged in the musical cul-ture of his time a similar crisis or malady,which he felt Bach could help to heal.

In portions of Reger’s op. 81, perhaps espe-cially in variations 3 and 5, the variation struc-ture tends to break down and thus capitulate tothe contingency of musical language and syn-tax. But the work also resists contingency anddissolution. In variations 8–13, the rounded re-turns represent an assertion of order, whichbecomes still more explicit in variation 14, theonly “strict” variation in the second half. Thefugue, which lasts almost eight minutes, mightbe heard as a heroic effort both to accept frag-mentation (in the form of the fugue subject)and to reestablish coherence through powerfulformal and harmonic closure in the � nal pages.

However we choose to explain the complextemporal-structural framework, it is clear thatReger writes directly into the Bach Variations,in a way that he could not have done in theOrgan Suite, an awareness of historical timethat is the essence of historicism. He composesout the distance between himself and Bach,and between himself and Beethoven and Brahmsas well. It is almost impossible to put thislayered process into words, but Reger managesto put it into music in ways that make op. 81perhaps the most revealing and touchingdocument of his historicist modernism.

An extraordinary aspect of variation 3 is that,despite its freely unfolding fantasy style, itsfourteen measures correspond exactly to thedimensions of the ritornello. But the main pointto be made is that this variation interrupts thetraditional � ow of a variation set quite early inits course and dramatizes that very action. Thevariation twice tries and fails to “begin” whenA1 appears in B minor; the second time, itseems to give up and moves immediately tothe � nal cadential phrase, C2, thus collapsingthe entire variation process.

Variation 4 returns to the structure of thetheme and � rst two variations, but variation 5dissolves it anew, and in a different way. The� rst ten measures are based almost exclusivelyon sequential treatment of a � gure derived fromA1. The “real” A1, in its original form, emergesin m. 81, and as in variation 3 we might thinkthat a conventional variation is about to begin.But, as in variation 3, the process is interrupted,and this form of A1 becomes treated sequen-tially, as at the beginning of the variation. Inop. 81 Reger exploits a distinction—and this isperhaps the most original contribution of thework to the variation literature up to thattime—between “real-time,” complete varia-tions and freer, more fragmentary ones, whichseem generated by memory.

Reger’s strategy in the second half of thepiece is, at � rst, to round off the individualvariations with a return to the initial motive ofthat variation (var. 8, m. 140; var. 9, mm. 152–53; var. 10, m. 170; var. 11, m. 193). In doing so,Reger omits the C portion of the ritornello andcreates an actual thematic return where onewas not present in the original. He may thus besaid to “classicize” or “romanticize” what wasa more open-ended Baroque aspect of the theme.In variation 12, the C section returns (m. 211)after a long absence, and the effect is quitestriking. But this variation, like the immedi-ately preceding ones, is also rounded off by areturn of its initial motive (in m. 215); aspectsof Classical-Romantic and Baroque thus com-mingle.

A different but related way of thinking of op.81 is that there is an implied past and present(as indicated in Table 1). The past is repre-sented by the theme and the stricter variations,which together might be said to embody for

44Hugo von Hofmannsthal, The Lord Chandos Letter, trans.Russell Stockman (Marlboro, Vt.: Marlboro Press, 1986), p.21.



Reger's Bach and Historicist Modernism

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