4th March 2024, Spring Update 2024
DVD contents of Module I and Module II are now available in RWA Online

All on DVD published contents of Module I – Organ Works and Module II are now available in RWA Online. And: Launch of the RWA Blog.

With its major Spring Update 2024, Reger-Werkausgabe (RWA) completes the range of contents available in RWA Online and integrates the digital components of the edition volumes published until 2019, which were previously only available on DVD. This includes both the first published volumes of the second project module “Songs and Choirs”–II/1 “Songs I” (2017), II/8 “Works for mixed voice unaccompanied choir I” (2018) and II/7 “Vocal works with organ accompaniment and further instruments” (2019)–as well as all edition volumes of the first project module “Organ Works” (RWA volumes I/1-7, published between 2010 and 2015), see also Publications. The new RWA Blog also provides a new space for presenting and contextualising project content.

1. The new RWA Blog

The new RWA blog contains contributions discussing overarching issues relating to the work contexts, the biographical circumstances, the research and editing process and, in future, questions of digital realisation. At the time of publication, for example, all introductory and preface texts of the printed edition volumes–kindly made possible by Carus-Verlag–are already freely accessible here and linked to the corresponding contents of the encyclopaedia.

2. Module I–Organ Works

RWA Spring Update 2024 provides access to a first version of Module I in RWA Online, which was completed in 2015 containing the editions of Max Reger's organ works. Processing data dating back up to 15 years, it was not only necessary to switch media from the DVD to the web service, but also to transform data from now outdated data standards versions into newer ones and to integrate this data into the data models and structures designed for use in RWA Online. This was accomplished in a process lasting several years, which ran parallel to the ongoing project and publication plan.

Currently, the organ works data set still largely corresponds to the publication status of the respective edition volumes. In a future update, additional errata and addenda of the subsequently published individual editions will be implemented and integrated into the respective critical remarks for a comparative view.

As in Module II, the project's publisher Carus-Verlag has kindly agreed to make the music edition text available for a partial presentation in the respective critical remarks of the critical reports. Likewise, thanks are due to the many institutional and private owners of source material who have agreed to the new or renewed publication of digital copies in RWA Online. Furthermore, users also have full access to the accompanying scholarly information on work creation histories and source material as well as the entire encyclopaedic context of the works.

The Max-Reger-Institute, the Reger-Werkausgabe and Carus-Verlag thus ensure that access to the musicological research about the organ works in the RWA, which is financed by public funds, is and remains possible for the public in the future.

3. DVD contents of RWA vols. II/1, II/8 and II/7

Also as part of this update, the contents of the first three edition volumes of Module II, which were still only available on DVD, are now available in RWA Online. With the imminent completion of the module by the end of 2024, the user's perspective on the editions of Max Reger's organ works as well as his songs and choral works will thus be completed to form a musicologically prepared overall complex that is unprecedented in form and scope.

4.

Nikolaos Beer
Karlsruhe, 4th March 2024