Max Reger-Cello Sonata No.1, 2, 3, 4

Max Reger

Reger, c. 1910

 

(19 March 1873 – 11 May 1916), commonly known as Max Reger, was a German composer, pianist, organist, conductor, and academic teacher. He worked as a concert pianist, as a musical director at the Leipzig University Church, as a professor at the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig, and as a music director at the court of Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen.

Reger first composed mainly Lieder, chamber music, choral music and works for piano and organ. He later turned to orchestral compositions, such as the popular Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (1914), and to works for choir and orchestra such as Gesang der Verklärten (1903), Der 100. Psalm (1909), Der Einsiedler and the Hebbel Requiem (both 1915).

 

Cello Sonata No.1  in F minor,Op.5 (1892)

 

The Cello Sonata in F minor, Op. 5, was composed by Max Reger in 1892 in Wiesbaden. He dedicated it to the cellist Oskar Brückner who performed it first, with the composer as the pianist, in Wiesbaden on 17 October 1893. It was published by Augener & Co., London, in September 1893.

The sonata is structured in three movements:

• Allegro maestoso ma appasionato
• Adagio con gran affetto – Più mosso assai
• Finale / Allegro (un poco scherzando)

The sonata shares characteristics with the works in the genre by Johannes Brahms, in harmony, rhythm, figuration, a rich piano part and passionate cello lines.^[3] The opening of the first movement has been described as "surging passionately and heroically".^[4] The second movement in D-flat major begins almost like an operatic scene, with a cello line like recitative. The finale is lively and playful. The musicologist Calum MacDonald writes: "Just before the coda there is a moment of quiet reflection that brings home how the opening phrase of the finale theme echoes that of the first movement’s first subject, before the tumultuous closing bars. In the final cadence the piano alludes to the dotted figure with which the sonata had begun".^[3] Gavin Dixon notes in a review that "intense drama is present from the first note of the First Sonata", and summarizes that the cello sonatas are "psychologically turbulent", complex and traumatic.^[5][영어위키 발췌]

 

Cello Sonata No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 28

Performed by Alexander Kniazev, cello, with Edouard Oganessian, piano

Movement One: Agitato - 0:00​
Movement Two: Prestissimo assai - 9:05​
Movement Three: Intermezzo. Poco sostenuto - 12:00​
Movement Four: Allegretto con grazia - 17:22​

 

 

Cello Sonata No. 3 in F Major, Op. 78

Performed by Alexander Kniazev, cello, with Edouard Oganessian, piano

Movement One: Allegro con brio - 0:00​
Movement Two: Vivacissimo - 14:06​
Movement Three: Andante con variazoni - 18:21​
Movement Four: Allegro vivace - 29:02

 

 

Cello Sonata No. 4 in A Minor, Op. 116

Performed by Alexander Kniazev, cello, with Edouard Oganessian, piano

Movement One: Allegro moderato - 0:00​
Movement Two: Presto - 11:07​
Movement Three: Largo - 15:17​
Movement Four: Allegretto con grazia - 29:06​