Max Reger: Melancholy (Vocal Works)

Description

For more than half a century, the Huelgas Ensemble, founded by Paul Van Nevel, has been recognized as one of the world's finest vocal ensembles for early music. After countless award-winning recordings of works from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, this is the first time the ensemble has devoted itself exclusively to a composer from the late Romantic period, Max Reger (1873-1916). For the album "Melancholy", which will be released on deutsche harmonia mundi/Sony Music, Paul Van Nevel has selected 13 special works by Reger. These include not only the "a cappella" repertoire, but also five compositions for choir and piano. The instrumental part is performed by the renowned conductor and pianist Jos van Immerseel, who chose for the recording a historic Bechstein grand piano from his collection of instruments. The program presents the tradition-conscious composer Reger, who venerated Bach and arranged folk songs. The program also includes choral works that show Reger was a bold composer. "The many references to music of the past made it difficult to categorize his music," explains Paul Van Nevel. "Reger's work could sound both neoclassical and avant-garde. The album's title, "Melancholy", reflects Reger's unquenchable longing for a lost past. Paul Van Nevel: "A romantic nostalgia (Weltschmerz), carefully chosen texts about the fate of death and about the night as a metaphor for uncertainty show that Reger was a child of his time - and made him, nolens volens, a homo melancholicus." Reger's appreciation of Johann Sebastian Bach is clearly audible in many of his works. He was also familiar with the stylistic elements of the Renaissance. The melodies from Renaissance song collections and the literary and melodic material left by Martin Luther (1483-1546) were a source of inspiration for Reger. One of his last works, the double choir "Der Mensch lebt und bestehet nur eine kleine Zeit", with enchanting restraint, was composed in the idiom of the late Renaissance polychoral style. Reger's interest in the musical past is also evident in his many arrangements of folk songs, mostly for four voices (for example "Das Sternlein"). The meditative motet "Der Mensch lebt und bestehet nur eine kleine Zeit" is a particularly moving vocal piece. It is not only one of Reger's last (double choir) works. When he died of a heart attack in a hotel room in Leipzig on May 11, 1916, the score of this choral work lay beside him. The album "Melancholy" by the Huelgas Ensemble on music by Max Reger will be released on deutsche harmonia mundi/Sony Music.