Composer: Max Reger
Performer: Jaap van Zweden
Orchestra: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Conductor: Neeme Järvi
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Chandos
Catalogue: CHAN8794
Release: 1989
Size: 283 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Tone Poems after Arnold Böcklin, Op. 128
01. I. Der geigende Eremit
02. II. Im Spiel der Wellen
03. III. Der Toteninsel
04. IV. Bacchanal
Variations and Fugue on a theme of Johann Adam Hiller Op. 100
05. Theme: Andante grazioso
06. Variation 1: Piu andante
07. Variation 2: Allegretto con grazia
08. Variation 3: Vivace
09. Variation 4: Poco vivace
10. Variation 5: Andante sostenuto
11. Variation 6: Tempo di minuetto
12. Variation 7: Presto
13. Variation 8: Andante con moto
14. Variation 9: Allegro con spirito
15. Variation 10: Allegro appassionato
16. Variation 11: Andante con moto
17. Fugue: Allegro moderato
Mention of Reger’s name in ‘informed’ circles is likely to produce a conditioned reflex: ‘Fugue!’ In his day he was the central figure of the ‘Back to Bach’ movement, but he was also a romantic who relished all the expressive potential of the enormous post-Wagnerian orchestra. Chandos exploits the open spaces of the Concertgebouw, forsaking some healthy transparency for an extra spatial dimension; a more sumptuous glow.
With Järvi’s instinct for pacing in late romantic music, and his great orchestra’s evident delight in the copious riches of the discovery, for the Hiller Variations, this disc is very tempting.
Anyone who warms to Vaughan Williams’s TallisFantasia will immediately respond to the ‘Hermit playing the violin’, the first of the four Böcklin tone-poems; Debussy’s ‘Jeux de vagues’ from La mer was obviously in Reger’s mind for the second poem ‘At play in the waves’; and the ‘Isle of the dead’ is Reger’s no less doom- and gloom-laden response to the painting that so captured Rachmaninov’s imagination. The final painting, ‘Bacchanal’, was described as a Munich beer festival in Roman costume – an entirely fitting description for Reger’s setting of it!