Fünf neue Kinderlieder op. 142

for hohe Singstimme und Klavier

Content
Creation
Komponiert in Jena, Mai 1915
Status
Dedication

Performance medium
High voice;

Work collection
  • -
Original work
  • -
Versions
  • -

1.

Reger-Werkausgabe Bd. II/5: Lieder V, S. 213–226.
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 Wiegenlied


Category
Text template
First edition

Template edition

Used for comparison purposes in RWA: First edition

Copy shown in RWA: unknown


Annotations

Note: Wohl handschriftliche Vorlage der Autorin des damals noch nicht gedruckten Gedichts.

Note: Reger hatte Margarete Stein seit März 1915 zur Textsuche für Opus 142 eingespannt (siehe Zur Entstehung, Herausgabe und Rezeption der Werke) und diese hatte, neben Werken anderer, wohl auch eigene Vorschläge eingebracht.


No. 2 Schwalbenmütterlein


Category
Text template
First edition

Template edition

Used for comparison purposes in RWA: First edition

Copy shown in RWA: DE, München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Paed.pr.4440 d.


Annotations

Note: In Erstausgabe innerhalb der Rubrik “Der Bauernhof”.

Note: Vorlage wohl handschriftliche Abschrift von Margarete Stein (siehe Bemerkung zu Nr. 1).


No. 3 Maria am Rosenstrauch


Category
Text template
First edition

Template edition

Copy shown in RWA: DE, Karlsruhe, Max-Reger-Institut/Elsa-Reger-Stiftung, TB.


Annotations

Note: Möglicherweise bereits in der 1. Auflage der Kinderlieder, die nicht ausfindig gemacht werden konnte.


No. 4 Klein-Evelinde


Category
Text template
First edition
unknown

Template edition

Annotations

Note: Erstausgabe nicht bekannt. Möglicherweise in Webers Gedichtsammlung Mädchenlieder, Dresden, Pierson, 1906, von der kein Exemplar mehr nachweisbar ist (ein im Katalog der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz aufgeführtes Exemplar [Signatur: Yo 30787] gilt als Kriegsverlust). – Nicht in Dies., Carpe diem. Gedichte, Berlin/Stuttgart, Juncker, 1907.

Note: Vorlage wohl handschriftliche Abschrift von Margarete Stein (siehe Bemerkung zu Nr. 1).


No. 5 Bitte


Werk
Category
Text template
First edition

Template edition

Used for comparison purposes in RWA: First edition

Copy shown in RWA: DE, München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 4 Paed.pr. 127.


Annotations

Note: Reger hatte das Gedicht “einem Programm entnommen, wo ebenfalls kein Dichter genannt war” (Brief Regers vom 5. Juni 1915 an den Verlag N. Simrock (Wilhelm Graf), zitiert nach Max Reger. Briefe an den Verlag N. Simrock, hrsg. von Susanne Popp, Stuttgart 2005 (= Veröffentlichungen des Max-Reger-Instituts Karlsruhe, Bd. XVIII), S. 248). Der Name wurde ihm nachträglich vom Verlag mitgeteilt, der ihm wohl auch die erbetene Erstausgabe zur Verfügung stellte (vgl. Postkarte Regers vom 11. Juni 1915 an dens., zitiert nach ebda., S. 253. – Reger las jedoch irrtümlich Hecht statt Holst).


1. Composition and Publication

Changing publisher to N. Simrock in 1914 had released Reger from his obligation to compose more Schlichte Weisen, though he nevertheless once more returned to setting children’s poems in the spring of 1915. The title he gave to this collection, Fünf neue Kinderlieder (Five new Children’s Songs), shows that Reger did not simply intend to continue the children’s songs of op. 76, but was planning to strike out in a different direction. This is especially evident in that the harmony in these songs is clearly more advanced.1

These songs were a friendly gesture in music for the Stein family, who were close friends of the Regers. Reger dedicated these songs to his godchildren Hedwig (“Bautz”) and Max Martin (“Märtel”) Stein, who were seven and three years old respectively at the time that he wrote them.2

In early March 1915, Reger asked Margarete Stein to help him search for texts so that he might “write these little songs for Bautz and Märtel this summer”. (Postcard to Margarete Stein of 5 March 1915) He asked her to compile “around 50 texts”, so he was clearly planning a more extensive series of songs. To illustrate the title page of the first print, he asked for a private photograph of his two godchildren, a picture in which both are standing”. (Postcard to Margarete Stein of 25 March 1915) Reger’s requests for texts became increasingly urgent,3 but Margarete Stein announced in late April [See Reger’s postcard to Margarete Stein of 29 April 1915 confirming this] that she was now able to provide him with an initial selection. She took the remaining texts with her – presumably in her own handwritten copies – when she went to meet Reger in his villa in Jena on 13 May. [See Reger’s postcard to Margarete Stein of 11 May 1915] Reger had already set four texts to music by 23 May,250 and a week later he was able to tell her that the work was now finished: “There are now 5 children’s songs; despite all my searching, I haven’t been able to find any more suitable texts!” [See Reger’s postcard to Margarete Stein of 30 May 1915] He had chosen children’s poems by Robert Reinick, Ernst Ludwig Schellenberg and Claire Henrika Weber, plus one by Adolf Holst that he had “taken from a programme”4 where the author was not named, and one by Margarete Stein herself.

When he sent off the engraver’s copies on 1 June 1915, Reger told his publisher N. Simrock that they were 5 very easy children’s songs, and he went on to explain that “I have written at the end of each song the key in which it should be engraved for medium voice! 2 editions will suffice: High (original) and medium. The keys of the ‘medium’ edition have been chosen so that contralto voices can sing these songs too.” (Letter to his publisher N. Simrock (Wilhelm Graf) of 1 June 1915) At his publisher’s suggestion, the transposed edition was labelled as for “low” voice.5 Reger also specified a different order for the songs from that of the engraver’s copies. The opus number “142a”6 given on the engraver’s copies suggests that Reger intended this work as the beginning of a series.

The war was responsible for delays that meant Reger only received the proofs by the end of 1915 at the earliest.7 He corrected the proofs for the original edition by 2 January 1916, [See letter to N. Simrock of 2 January 1916] but the low edition was only sent by the engraver on 14 January,8 and Reger’s intense concert activity at this time meant he was only able to check these proofs by the beginning of March. He sent them back to the publisher on 10 March, along with the second proofs for the edition for high voice.9 On 8 May, Reger informed two women singers of the imminent publication of his Five new Children’s Songs.10 They were published a few weeks after Reger died on 11 May 1916 and were given the opus number 142. As Reger had requested, they were issued both as a set in a single volume and in separate editions.11

2.

Translation by Chris Walton.


1
See Roman Brotbeck, “5. Diskurs. Musik über Musik über Musik. Bemerkun- gen zu den Werkgruppen op. 141, op. 142 und op. 143”, in Brotbeck, Zum Spätwerk von Max Reger. Fünf Diskurse, Wiesbaden 1988 (= Schriftenreihe des Max-Reger-Instituts Bonn, vol. VIII), pp. 107–123; here: p. 107.
2
Reger was also the godfather of the youngest child of the Stein family, Siegfried Stein, who had died in May 1914 at the age of just 10 months.
3
On 27 April, Reger had once more emphasised his need for texts, this time by means of a musical quotation (Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu Dir, “Out of the depths have I called unto Thee”) [see his postcard to Margarete Stein].
5
See Reger’s letter to his publisher N. Simrock (Wilhelm Graf) of 5 June 1915, plus his postcard of 8 June 1915 to the same addressee – The instructions for the transposition given in the engraver’s copies were stated as “for medium voice”, though this was then changed by the publisher into “low voice”.
6
Engraver’s copy in Münchner Stadtbibliothek, Musikbibliothek, inventory no.: Mpr L Y 11 364/73.
7
Reger was still waiting for the proofs to be sent on 15 December [see his letter to N. Simrock (Wilhelm Graf)]
8
See the stamp of the Röder engraving company on fol. 1r. of the proofs for low voice. Private collection.
9
“Tomorrow, I’ll send in a registered roll the proofs of the new children’s songs in both editions! They lack almost nothing, so no new proofs are necessary for me!” (letter to N. Simrock, Wilhelm Graf, of 9 March 1916)
11
See the advertisement in Hofmeisters Musikalisch-literarischer Monatsbericht über neue Musikalien, musikalische Schriften und Abbildungen, vol. 88, no. 6 (June 1916), p. 80.

1. Reception

At present, there are no records of performances in Reger's time.

1. Stemma

Die in Klammern gesetzten Quellen sind verschollen.
Die in Klammern gesetzten Quellen sind verschollen.

2. Quellenbewertung

Der Edition liegt als Leitquelle der Erstdruck zugrunde. Den Korrekturprozess konnte Reger vor seinem Tod im Mai 1916 zu Ende bringen. Einzelausgaben und Bandausgabe, die von denselben Platten gestochen wurden, unterscheiden sich nicht im Notentext. Als Referenzquellen dienten die vielfach differenzierter bezeichneten Stichvorlagen (siehe Zu den editorischen Besonderheiten in den Liederbänden). Insbesondere im Bereich der Vortragsanweisungen wurde oftmals den Lesarten der Stichvorlagen der Vorzug gegeben. Neben den Originalausgaben erschien zeitgleich die Ausgabe für tiefe Stimme. Die entsprechenden Interventionen Regers – darunter auch eine Textkorrektur (siehe Kommentar zu Nr. 1, T. 45f.) – sind anhand des vom Komponisten bearbeiteten Korrekturabzugs dokumentiert. Der Entwurf spielte für die Edition keine Rolle.

3. Sources

  • Entwurf (E)
  • Stichvorlagen ()
  • Korrekturabzug der Ausgabe für tiefe Stimme (KAtief)
  • Erstdruck Einzelausgaben (ED-E)
  • Erstdruck Bandausgabe (ED-S)
  • Erstdruck für tiefe Stimme, Einzelausgaben und Bandausgabe (EDtief-E bzw. EDtief-S)
Object reference

Max Reger: Fünf neue Kinderlieder op. 142, in: Reger-Werkausgabe, www.reger-werkausgabe.de/mri_work_00173.html, version 3.1.1, 7th January 2025.

Information

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