Piano Quintet op. 64 & Cello Sonata op. 116

A centenary celebration will often mark an important stage in the reputation and acceptance of an artist or of a work — a familiar work will be examined anew and occasionally reassessed, whilst an unknown work, thanks to the anniversary celebrations, can be rediscovered and brought to a wider audience. In the case of Max Reger, this year marks the one hundredth anniversary of his all too premature death and opens up some astonishing perspectives: Reger’s undisputed reputation in music history as a pioneering visionary and yet a composer whose roots were firmly anchored in tradition is now finally re-established in a flurry of performances of his works after long decades of under-representation in the concert hall, including works that until now had hardly ever had the opportunity to be performed. This recording of two outstanding and yet completely different works from Reger’s gigantic body of chamber music is a tribute to the Reger anniversary year: it includes his rarely-played Piano Quintet op. 64, one of the greatest of his early works, and his fourth and final Cello Sonata op. 116, a masterpiece composed some nine years later and still generally unknown.

Kolja Lessing