The year 2026 marks the 110th anniversary of the death of Max Reger (1873–1916). We turn our attention to a composer who has been regarded both as a late-Romantic genius and as a master of excessively dense texture. Over the course of his twenty-year career, he composed an astonishing amount of music in nearly every genre, with the exception of opera and symphony. Chamber music plays a significant role in his oeuvre. Like Johannes Brahms, Reger had a special connection to the clarinet, and it was precisely in writing for this instrument that he found an extraordinary compositional and emotional focus. He wrote several works for clarinet, including three clarinet sonatas and the Clarinet Quintet, Op. 146.
Reger’s Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 49, are directly inspired by Brahms’s Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 120. In 1900, Reger heard Brahms’s Clarinet Sonata in F minor for the first time. This encounter struck him as a challenge. At a private concert featuring his former piano teacher Adalbert Lindner and clarinetist Johann Kürmeyer, he remarked: “Well, I’ll write two of those too.” A few weeks later, the promise was fulfilled. Composed in such a short time, these works embody the composer’s deep inspiration and reveal the defining features of Reger’s style: long, tense melodic lines, a densely interwoven dialogue between clarinet and piano, and a chromatically rich, texturally lush musical language. After the sonatas were completed, Kürmeyer performed them together with the composer at a private concert.
Kürmeyer, who had thoroughly rehearsed his virtuosic part, left an indelible impression with his interpretation on both the audience and the composer himself.
Program
Max Reger (1873–1916)
Clarinet Sonata, Op. 49 No. 2 in F-sharp minor (1900)
I Allegro dolente
II Vivacissimo
III Larghetto (un poco con moto)
IV Allegro affabile (con moto)
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
Clarinet Sonata, Op. 120 No. 2 in E-flat major (1894)
I Allegro amabile
II Allegro appassionato – Trio
III Andante con moto – Allegro – Più tranquillo
Soo-Young Lee, clarinet
Maksim Štšura, piano
