Fünf Gesänge op. 98
for mittlere bzw. tiefe Singstimme und Klavier
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No. 1 Aus den Himmelsaugen
Text: Heinrich Heine
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No. 2 Der gute Rath
Text: Georg Schatz
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No. 3 Sonntag
Text: Volkslied
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No. 4 Es schläft ein stiller Garten
Text: Carl Hauptmann
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No. 5 Sommernacht
Text: Gertrud Triepel
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1.
Reger-Werkausgabe | Bd. II/5: Lieder V, S. 23–43. |
Herausgeber | Knud Breyer und Stefan König. Unter Mitarbeit von Christopher Grafschmidt und Claudia Seidl. |
Verlag | Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart; Verlagsnummer: CV 52.812. |
Erscheinungsdatum | Oktober 2024. |
Notensatz | Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart. |
Copyright | 2024 by Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart and Max-Reger-Institut, Karlsruhe – CV 52.812. Vervielfältigungen jeglicher Art sind gesetzlich verboten. / Any unauthorized reproduction is prohibited by law. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. / All rights reserved. |
ISMN | M-007-33910-4 |
ISBN | 978-3-89948-463-2. |
No. 1 Aus den Himmelsaugen
Heinrich Heine: [Aus den Himmelsaugen droben fallen zitternd goldne Funken…], in:
id.: Buch der Lieder, Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg
Heinrich Heine: [Aus den Himmelsaugen droben fallen zitternd goldne Funken…], in:
Die Ernte aus acht Jahrhunderten deutscher Lyrik, ed. by Will Vesper, Wilhelm Langewiesche-Brandt, Düsseldorf and Leipzig
Copy shown in RWA: DE, Bonn, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, Fa 1318/29.
Note: Das Gedicht ist in der Erstausgabe Teil von VII. Nachts in der Cajüte aus dem ersten Zyklus der Abteilung Die Nordsee (1825–1826) als dessen Abschlussstrophen 8 und 9.
No. 2 Der gute Rath
Georg Schatz: Der gute Rat. An Damon, in:
id.: Blumen auf den Altar der Grazien, Dyksche Buchhandlung, Leipzig
Georg Schatz: Der gute Rath, in:
Aus Urgroßmutters Garten. Ein Frühlingssstrauß aus dem Rokoko, ed. by Arno Holz, Carl Reißner, Dresden
Copy shown in RWA: DE, Karlsruhe, Max-Reger-Institut, TB.
Note: Reger bat seine Verleger Lauterbach & Kuhn um Zusendung des Bandes von Arno Holz zur Textsuche (vgl. Brief Regers vom 13. Mai 1906 an Lauterbach & Kuhn, in Max Reger. Briefe an die Verleger Lauterbach & Kuhn, Teil 2, hrsg. von Herta Müller, Bonn 1998 (= Veröffentlichungen des Max-Reger-Institutes/Elsa-Reger-Stiftung Karlsruhe, Bd. 14), S. 131). Regers Exemplar befindet sich heute in den Meininger Museen (Max-Reger-Archiv der Meininger Museen, Signatur: R Bü 137).
No. 3 Sonntag
by Volkslied
Sonntag, Nr. 90, in:
Neu-vermehrtes Berg-Lieder-Büchlein welches nicht allein mit schönen Berg-Reyhen sondern auch andern lustigen so wohl alt- als neuen Weltlichen Gesängen allen lustigen und frölichen Herzen zu Ergötzung des Gemühtes verstehen, [Freiberg]
[Possibly] Sonntag, Nr. 467, in:
Deutscher Liederhort. Auswahl der vorzüglicheren Deutschen Volkslieder, vol. 2, ed. by Ludwig Erk and Franz M. Böhme, Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig
Copy shown in RWA: DE, Karlsruhe, Max-Reger-Institut/Elsa-Reger-Stiftung.
[Possibly] Sonntag. Aus Uhlands Volksliedern, Nr. 3, in:
Johannes Brahms: Fünf Lieder, N. Simrock, Berlin
Used for comparison purposes in RWA: Sonntag, Nr. 467, in:
Deutscher Liederhort. Auswahl der vorzüglicheren Deutschen Volkslieder, vol. 2, ed. by Ludwig Erk and Franz M. Böhme, Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig
Copy shown in RWA: DE, Karlsruhe, Max-Reger-Institut/Elsa-Reger-Stiftung.
Note: Als Vorlage Regers kommen die Anthologie von Erk/Böhme oder die Vertonung von Johannes Brahms in Frage. Die auf Uhland zurückgehende Überlieferung von Brahms unterscheidet sich kaum von derjenigen bei Erk/Böhme. Da Reger, der textlich von diesen Quellen kaum abweicht, jedoch den bei Brahms vorhandenen Untertitel mit Verweis auf Uhland nicht übernimmt, ist es wahrscheinlich, dass er eine auf Erk/Böhme basierende Textvorlage nutzte.
Note: Das Volkslied ist überliefert u. a. in Alte hoch- und niederdeutsche Volkslieder in fünf Büchern, hrsg. von Ludwig Uhland, Bd. 1, Stuttgart und Tübingen, J. G. Cotta’scher Verlag, 1844, S. 124f. (dort altsprachlich). – Später auch in Deutscher Liederhort. Auswahl der vorzüglicheren Deutschen Volkslieder, nach Wort und Weise aus der Vorzeit und Gegenwart gesammelt und erläutert von Ludwig Erk, […] neubearbeitet und fortgesetzt von Franz M. Böhme, Bd. 2, Leipzig 1893, S. 290 (Nr. 467).
No. 4 Es schläft ein stiller Garten
Carl Hauptmann: Es schläft ein stiller Garten, in:
id.: Aus meinem Tagebuch, Fischer, Berlin
First edition
Copy shown in RWA: DE, Karlsruhe, Max-Reger-Institut, TB.
Note: Reger erhielt vom Autor nach der Vertonung ein Widmungsexemplar des Gedichtsbandes: “Max Reger in herzlicher Freude an „Es schläft ein stiller Garten“. Mittelschreiberhau Mai 1911. Carl Hauptmann.” (Exemplar Meininger Museen (Max-Reger-Archiv), Signatur: R Bü 124.)
No. 5 Sommernacht
Gertrud Triepel: Sommernacht, in: Sonntags-Zeitung fürs Deutsche Haus. Illustrierte Familien- und Frauenzeitung, 9. Jg. (), issue 40, , p. 948.
unknown
1. Composition and Publication
Reger’s songs opp. 97 and 98, all from 1906, have “a common history originating in my hunt for texts last spring”.1 The Four Songs op. 97 were published by Reger’s principal publisher Lauterbach & Kuhn, but the latter gave Reger permission to publish his Five Songs op. 98 with N. Simrock in Berlin. Dividing up his songs into two separate opus numbers made both collections smaller and better marketable than Reger’s large-scale song collections opp. 70 and op. 75, which were correspondingly more difficult to sell. Allocating the two new sets to two different publishers also served to disseminate the songs more broadly.
As was his wont, Reger had asked many different people to send him texts suitable for setting to music. He got Lauterbach & Kuhn to send him the anthology Aus Urgroßmutters Garten (“From great-grandmother’s garden”) by Arno Holz in May 1906.2 This was “a collection of poems from the Rococo and Biedermeier eras”[See Reger’s letter to Lauterbach & Kuhn of 13 May 1906 – Reger’s copy is held today by the Max-Reger-Archiv, Meininger Museen (shelfmark: R Bü 137).] from which he set the poems Der bescheidene Schäfer (“The modest shepherd”) by Christian Felix Weiße and Der gute Rath (“Good advice”) by Georg Schatz (opp. 97 no. 4 and 98 no. 2 respectively). In early July, the musicologist Max Hehemann sent Reger the anthology Die Ernte aus acht Jahrhunderten deutscher Lyrik (“A harvest of eight centuries of German poetry”) that had just been edited by Will Vesper,3 from which Reger chose Heinrich Heine’s Aus den Himmelsaugen (“From the eyes of heaven”) as the text for the opening song of his op. 98. Reger himself came across Stefan Zweig’s first volume of poetry entitled Erstling Silberne Saiten4 (“Silver strings”) and wrote to the author to ask for his “permission [...] to set to music six poems from this volume”.5 Ultimately, however, Reger chose only to set the expressive poem Ein Drängen (“Urging”, op. 97 no. 3). It is surely no coincidence that he included Sonntag (“Sunday”) as no. 3) of his op. 98, for it is a setting of a folk song text that Johannes Brahms had already set to music and had also published with Simrock, back in 1868.6
Reger sent the engraver’s copy of the Five Songs op. 98 to Simrock on 22 July 1906.7 Three days later, at his summer residence in Prien am Chiemsee, he signed the contract with Simrock for the songs,8 and corrected the proofs in early August.9 By mid-September he was able to send his dedicatees their complimentary copies of the first print. These were the well-known singers Lula Mysz-Gmeiner (op. 98 nos. 1 and 2) and Adrienne von Kraus-Osborne (nos. 4 and 5) and the successful concert agent Louise Wolff (no. Nr. 3).10
As he had promised them in advance,11 Reger sent the engraver’s copies of his Four Songs op. 97 to Lauterbach & Kuhn on 1 August 1906. Here, too, he dedicated his songs to trusted singers of his works: to Adele Münz (op. 97 no. 1), Sanna van Rhyn (no. 2) and Marie Klinger (no. 4). However, Reger once more relied primarily on Lula Mysz-Gmeiner to engage with his new songs and make them known, though it proved impossible to adhere to his ambitious schedule by which “the 4 Songs op. 97 will definitely [be published] on 1 Sept.” – in other words, at the same time as op. 98, “so that Ms. Mysz-Gmeiner can still take them into her repertoire”. (Letter to Carl Lauterbach, of 1 August 1906) The process of printing and correcting them took longer than expected, and the edition was only available as of October 1906.12
In contrast to his songs op. 98, each of which was published only for one specific vocal range – nos. 1–3 for medium voice and nos. 4–5 for low voice – the original edition of op. 97 (for medium and high voice) was supplemented by an edition for low voice. Reger decided on the keys to be used for these versions and noted corresponding instructions for their transposition in his engraver’s copies. When Anna Erler-Schnaudt and Reger gave the world pre- miere of Das Dorf (“The village”), op. 97 no. 1, in the Städtischer Saalbau in Darmstadt on 13 October 1906, they presumably played from proofs of the edition for low voice.13
2.
Translation by Chris Walton.
1. Reception
The opening songs of op. 97 and 98 became popular repertoire pieces. More than 30 performances of the Heine setting Aus den Himmelsaugen op. 98 no. 1 are documented up to the time of Reger’s death in 1916, while there were more than 60 performances of Das Dorf op. 97 no. 1, a setting of the poem of the same title by Martin Boelitz.1 Reger also orchestrated both these songs in late 1913.2
Das Dorf was especially popular with the critics. After its first performance in Munich, with Reger accompanying Beatrice Lauer-Kottlar of London, Theodor Kroyer wrote in the Allgemeinen Zeitung that the song “has a number of competent predecessors in formal terms, but surpasses them all in its sensual fullness of life; it comes across as a kind of vivid image from which organic powers emerge with tangible clarity; this is probably the best song that Reger has written to date.”3 When the composer Wilhelm Kienzl attended a song recital given by Reger and Amalie Gimkiewicz in Graz, he noted having heard “mostly atmospheric pictures, some of them impressionistic in manner”, but wrote in concrete terms about Das Dorf with reference to the famous contemporary artists’ colony north of Bremen: “One might even be tempted to call it a ‘musical [member of] Worpswede’”.4 Aus den Himmelsaugen op. 98 no. 1 was given its first performance by Reger and Sophie Rikoff in Munich on 6 October 1906, when it impressed the reviewer of the Musikalischen Rundschau as a “setting of Heine’s poem with a yearningly powerful sense of climax”.5
Others of these songs had a harder time with the music critics, however. When Reger and Else Schünemann gave a complete performance of the Four Songs op. 97 in Berlin on 8 December 1906, Paul Bekker was presumably referring primarily to his setting of the Rococo poem Der bescheidene Schäfer when he wrote: “Some of the songs were downright perplexing, though they were supposed to be humorous.”6 In his review of the first print of op. 97, Hugo Leichtentritt referred to this same song, saying that “it wouldn’t fail to make its effect if performed well”, but adding: “Whether this kind of humour is appropriate to the endearingly philistine rhymes of old Papa Weisse is perhaps a matter for debate among the ‘experts’ whom Reger despises so much.”7
The song sets opp. 97 and 98 also provoked more fundamental criticism from both Walter Niemann and Reger’s former teacher Hugo Riemann. After a concert by Reger and Anna Erler-Schnaudt in Leipzig, Niemann drew up a whole list of shortcomings: “Every detail – and, regrettably, every word – is highlighted and expounded and all of them strung together like in a mosaic; there is a lack of unity, of bright or truly humorous moods (Der gute Rat, Der bescheidene Schäfer); there is frequent confusion between disposition and sentimentality, an unconscious appropriation of Brahms’s emotional tone [...], and a [...] striking lack of concentration; their largely unproductive inspiration is instrumental in nature and results in extreme unsingability; they are also unable to achieve a truly folksy tone (Sonntag). These are all the principal weaknesses of Reger’s songs.”8 Hugo Riemann’s discussion of Reger’s Stefan-Zweig setting Ein Drängen op. 97 no. 3, which he placed prominently in the section entitled “Conclusion” in his three-volume Großen Kompositionslehre (“Grand theory of composition”) of 1913, can be read as a general reckoning with his former star pupil. Riemann’s invective is essentially an epilogue to the debate about the very future of music that had taken place between the sometime teacher and his pupil in the spring and summer of 1907 that had finally shattered their relationship.9 Leichtentritt had been unreservedly impressed by Ein Drängen (“with its grand line, its broad delivery, genuine pathos, with not one measure too many”),10 but Riemann’s analysis took particular aim at Reger’s supposedly “unorthographical style of writing”.11 He means Reger’s pragmatic, flexible practice of alternating between chords in sharp and flat keys that was incompatible with Riemann’s rules of functional theory. In one of his annotations to the engraver’s copy for Ein Drängen, Reger had proposed just such a solution in the transposed edition in order to avoid double sharps and double flats as much as possible.12 But for Riemann, this “unconventional manner of writing” on Reger’s part “also suggests that his composition eludes traditional thought patterns”13 and was synonymous with “enharmonic phantasmagoria”.14 He concluded his Große Kompositionslehre with “a protest against such procedures”.15
2.
Translation by Chris Walton.
1. Stemma

2. Quellenbewertung
Der Edition liegt als Leitquelle der Erstdruck zugrunde. Die Orchesterfassung der Nr. 1 spielte für editorische Entscheidungen keine Rolle.
3. Sources
- Stichvorlagen (verschollen)
- Erstdruck (ED)
- Nr. 1 für Singstimme und Orchester: Erstausgabe
Object reference
Max Reger: Fünf Gesänge op. 98, in: Reger-Werkausgabe, www.reger-werkausgabe.de/mri_work_00115.html, version 3.1.1, 31st January 2025.
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