Description

Max REGER – ‘Der Mensch lebt und bestehet’, a Sacred Motet, Op. 138, No. 1 (1914/1916), for EIGHT SOLO CELLOS or LARGER CELLO ENSEMBLE – prepared by David Johnstone

PDF 1 – General Cello Ensemble Score
PDF 2 – All Individual Cello Parts
Detailed notes on Reger and this special music are also included in the downloads

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Notes on MAX REGER

Max Reger, full name Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger, lived from 1873 to 1916 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.

Max Reger (1873-1916), one of the giants of music in Germany passed away prematurely, the fault of an insane concert schedule that saw him travel all over Europe – he unexpectedly died from a heart attack at the age of just 43.

Musical Style:
Despite the brevity of Reger’s career, he was most prodigious in output. Max Reger lived in times of change. His music represents both a late flowering of German Romanticism and a foretaste of the Modernism to come. His mature chamber works demonstrate the best of both worlds, combining expressivity with innovation. Max Reger was an important composer whose artistic worth far surpasses his still generally poor representation on the concert stage and in recordings. Away from fashion, he wrote music that was both ahead of its time and inextricably bound to the past.

DER MENSCH LEBT UND BESTEHET

‘Der Mensch lebt und bestehet’, Op. 138, No. 1, is a sacred motet for unaccompanied mixed choir by Max Reger. The German text is a poem by Matthias Claudius, beginning with “Der Mensch lebt und bestehet nur eine kleine Zeit” (“Man liveth and endureth but a short time” – or in more modern English: “Man lives and exists for but a little time”). The piece is set in A minor (with the last section in the major) and scored for eight voices in two choirs SATB. Composed in Meiningen in 1914, it was published in 1916 immediately after Reger’s death as the first of ‘Acht geistliche Gesänge’ (Eight Sacred Songs).

David Johnstone brings the scoring down a perfect fourth so as to be easily playable by cello octets or larger cello ensembles – it is fairly comfortable, without thumb position present, but of enormous profundity. One should first be acquainted with choral audios/videos to bring out the best for cello ensemble playing.

In all Reger composed eight motets forming the ‘Acht geistliche Gesänge’ (Eight Sacred Songs), Op. 138. After a lifelong reputation of a composer of amazingly complex chromatic creations, here he shines as a master of “new simplicity”. The poem reflects how short-lived and transient are both the human existence and the splendour of this world, in contrast to one who is eternal. However, Reger died before completing his review of the proof from the publisher. The proofs were next to his bed when he was found dead in a hotel in Leipzig on 11th May 1916, so this is an amazing document as to the very LAST compositional effort of Max Reger on the last day of his life….

Level: Medium level only, but a sustaining tone quality is important!

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Photo of composer Max Reger in 1913:

ENGLISH

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The following have taken his work onboard, sometimes with special collaborations as composer-arranger-performer: the Philadelphia Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi, Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela, Orchestre Nouvelle Generation de Montreal, the Gulbenkian Orchestra (Lisbon), Orchestra da Camera del Locarnese (Suiza), The Zagreb Soloists, the Saint Petersburg Musical Theatre “Zazerkalye” Chamber Orchestra, the Wroclaw Chamber Orchestra Leopoldinum (Poland), Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra (New Zealand), Camerata Cambrensis (Basque country), Ensemble Metamorphosis of Belgrade (Serbia), with Ara Malikian (Non Profit Music Chamber Orchestra – Madrid), and a long etc.. Currently, many courses, conservatoires and music schools, university String departments etc. use his repertoire; there are dozens of his arrangements on ‘You Tube’ …

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