Max Reger
Max Reger's organ music packs Bach's counterpoint into dense late-Romantic harmony: chorale preludes, toccatas and the Benedictus that still stills a nave. His chamber miniatures carry the same concentrated craft into violin and piano.
He wrote almost everything except opera and the full symphony, returning again and again to fugue and variation. The Op. 59 organ pieces swing from thunder to hush within a few bars; the Three Pieces for violin and piano, Op. 79d, move from Wiegenlied to Capriccio and Burla with Brahmsian warmth and sudden wit. Absolute music was his creed. Beethoven and Brahms supplied the forms, Wagner the stretch of harmony, Bach the polyphony. What results is reflective chamber writing and liturgical organ scores built for listening, not display: short works that leave a long aftertaste.
Compositions by Max Reger appear on
Organ Miniatures
A collection of 33 short organ works on the 1882 T.C. Lewis organ at St George’s Uniting Church, East St Kilda. The programme samples music written for small pipe organs and harmoniums, from Baroque chorales to twentieth-century miniatures.
Historic Organs of the Barossa Valley, Vol. 1
Christopher Dearnley and John Stiller give striking performances on six historic church organs of South Australia’s Barossa Valley. A 16-page booklet traces the instruments, their builders and the music.
Festival of Organ Masterpieces
Douglas Lawrence plays favourite organ repertoire on the instrument of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne, spanning nearly three centuries of transcriptions and original works.