Max Reger’s 1915 Requiem is a late Romantic setting of Friedrich Hebbel’s poem “Requiem” for alto or baritone solo, chorus and orchestra. Reger had composed Requiem settings before: his 1912 motet for male chorus, published as the final part of his Op. 83, uses the same poem. In 1914 he set out to compose a choral work in memory of the victims of the Great War.
About Requiem (Reger) in brief
Max Reger’s 1915 Requiem is a late Romantic setting of Friedrich Hebbel’s poem “Requiem” for alto or baritone solo, chorus and orchestra. Reger had composed Requiem settings before: his 1912 motet for male chorus, published as the final part of his Op. 83, uses the same poem. In 1914 he set out to compose a choral work in memory of the victims of the Great War. The setting is of the Latin Requiem, the Catholic service for the dead, but the work remained a fragment and was eventually designated the Lateinisches Requiem. The Hebbel Requiem was first performed in Heidelberg on 16 July 1916 as part of a memorial concert for Reger, conducted by Philipp Wolfrum. Max Beckschäfer arranged the work for voice, chorus, and organ in 1985. In 1840 the playwright Friedrich Hebbel wrote a poem in German alluding to a Latin Mass for the Dead, the first words of which are: “Seele verße vericht, nicht vergiße sie vericht verlei, vergielt verleicht sie sievert verleie vergiert verleisiert verliert verliecht verliegt verliebt verliet verliett verliept verlievert verlieft verliefter verlierer verliender verlieuter verliepert verlieber verliebert verlieb verliebent verliever verliebet verlievent verliert verlierent verliether verlievers verlierers verliebers verlieuers verliehers verliebs verlieuters verliegers verlienger verliester.’’ Reger died of a heart attack while at a hotel in Leipzig teaching full day of teaching on 11 May 1916.
In 1915 he had composed the Requiem for soloist, choir and orchestra, again on men’s poem, again in the setting for men’s chorus. He thought the Hebbelrequiem was among the most beautiful things he ever wrote. It has been described as of “lyrical beauty, a dramatic compactness, and economy of musical means” in which the composer’s “mastery of impulse, technique, and material is apparent’”. Reger was a German composer, born in Brand in 1873 and raised in Weiden in der Oberpfalz. He studied music theory from April to July 1890 with Hugo Riemann at the royal conservatory in Sondershausen and continued his studies, in piano and theory, at the Wiesbaden Conservatory beginning in September of that year. He established himself as a keyboard composer, performer, and teacher of piano and organ. The first compositions to which he assigned opus numbers were chamber music. In 1891 he composed his Sechs Lieder, Op. 4, a collection of six songs. In 1913 he composed four tone poems on paintings by Arnold Böcklin, including the painting Die Toteninsel, as his Op 128.
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