Max Reger

Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger (19 March 187311 May 1916) was a German composer, pianist, organist, conductor, and academic teacher. He worked as a concert pianist, a musical director at the Leipzig University Church, a professor at the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig, and a music director at the court of George II, Duke 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), (1909), Der Einsiedler and the Hebbel Requiem (both 1915). Biography Born in Brand, Bavaria, Reger was the first child of Josef Reger, a school teacher and amateur musician, and his wife Katharina Philomena. The devout Catholic family moved to Weiden in 1874. Max had only one sister, Emma, after three other siblings died in childhood. When he turned five, Reger learned organ, violin and cello from his father and piano from his mother. From 1884 to 1889, Reger took piano and organ lessons from Adalbert Lindner, one of his father’s students. During this time, he f