Max Reger wrote the first part of the work in 1908 for the 350th anniversary of Jena University. Part I was first performed on 31 July 1908 at the ceremony marking the anniversary. The composer used both late-Romantic features of harmony and dynamics, and polyphony in the Baroque tradition.
About Der 100. Psalm in brief
Der 100. Psalm is a composition in four movements by Max Reger in D major for mixed choir and orchestra. It is a late Romantic setting of Psalm 100. Reger wrote the first part of the work in 1908 for the 350th anniversary of Jena University. Part I was first performed on 31 July 1908 at the ceremony marking the anniversary. The work was published in 1909 and premiered simultaneously on 23 February 1910 in Chemnitz and Breslau. The celebration of the Reger Year 2016, reflecting the centenary of the composer’s death, led to several performances of Der 100. Psalm in the UK and the U.S. in October and November 2016. The full score for the vocal, which Reger prepared for the piano reduction, and the parts appeared in December that year. The organ version was first performances in 2003, in Wiesbaden where the composer studied. The final movement, a double fugue with the added instrumental cantus firmus, was performed in February 2013 in the church of St. Peters in St.Lukas, Stolz, with the orchestra and choir of the municipal church and the municipal municipal church choir of St Peters, St. Martin’s, St Paul’s, and St. Paul’s Church in Leipzig. The composer used both late-Romantic features of harmony and dynamics, and polyphony in the Baroque tradition. He based the composition on Martin Luther’s translation of the psalm.
In 1922, the biographer Eugen Segnitz noted that this work, of intense expression, was unique in the sacred music of its period, with its convincing musical interpretation of the biblical text and manifold shades of emotion. He dedicated it to the Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Jena zum 350jährigen Jubiläum and the University of Jena. After the first performance, Reger received an honorary doctorate from Jena. In 1902 he married Elsa von Bercken, a divorced Protestant. In 1907 Reger was appointed professor at the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig, A year later he began the setting ofPsalm 100 with the first movement. He completed the composition of three more movements from May 1909 to August 1909 with the score, beginning in September 1909. The first movement was performed at the Ceremony of the 350th anniversary of Jena university on 31 July 1908, conducted by Fritz Stein. In February 1910, the composer conducted the Akademischer Chor Jena and the Sängerschaft zu St. Pauli, the band of the Erfurt Infantry Regiment 71, members of the Weimar court orchestra and organist Kurt Gorn. The second movement was premiered on 23 February 1910 in Chemnitz, with Reger conducting the choir and the orchestra.
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