Tantum ergo in g WoO VI/2

for five-part mixed voice unaccompanied choir

Content

Text: Thomas von Aquin

Creation

Weiden, September 1895

Status

–

Dedication

–

Performance medium

Mixed choir [Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass 1, Bass 2]

Work collection

Original work

Versions

1.

Reger-Werkausgabe	Bd. II/8: Werke für gemischten Chor a cappella I, S. 2–3.
Herausgeber	Alexander Becker, Christopher Grafschmidt, Stefan König, Stefanie Steiner-Grage.
Verlag	Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart; Verlagsnummer: CV 52.815.
Erscheinungsdatum	Juni 2018.
Notensatz	Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart.
Copyright	2018 by Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart and Max-Reger-Institut, Karlsruhe – CV 52.815. Vervielfältigungen jeglicher Art sind gesetzlich verboten. / Any unauthorized reproduction is prohibited by law. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. / All rights reserved.
ISMN	M-007-18831-3.
ISBN	978-3-89948-302-4.

Work

Pange lingua (vv. 5–6)

by Thomas von Aquin

Also for

1. Composition

1.1.

With the composition of the Tantum ergo in g for five-part unaccompanied choir in September 1895 in Weiden, Reger fulfilled a request from his former teacher Adalbert Lindner, who had asked for such a work for the Catholic church choir.¹ On 12 September, a week after completing the 111 Canons for piano WoO III/4, his major composition of those months, Reger wrote the date of completion in the autograph score. Written in the Phrygian mode, it alludes to church music of the 16th century.²

Reger’s instructions in the autograph manuscript to the copyist of the parts (which do not survive) and his insistence to “also take the changes in tempo (string. Adagios etc.) just as much into consideration in performance” faksimile, were made with a view to performance by the church choir. This was conducted at the time by Karl Schug, a former music teacher of Reger’s. However, a performance did not take place. Lindner reported that the work represented “much too unfamiliar fare for the choir and its then conductor K. Sch. with whom Reger was not on the best of terms”.³

2. Publication

2.1. Posthumous Publication

The autograph score ended up, like the manuscripts of many of Reger’s early works which were not intended for publication, in the possession of Adalbert Lindner – by the latest around the time of Reger’s move to Munich on 1 September 1901. Lindner published the first nine measures and the Amen ending in 1922 in his Reger biography⁴; he then published the complete work in 1943 on the 70th anniversary of Reger’s birth with the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel.⁵

3.

Translation by Elizabeth Robinson.

See Lindner 1938, p. 300.

For information on style, see Annett Bruckmann,»Ich weiß, daß mein Erlöser lebet …« Max Regers geistliche a-cappella-Werke für gemischten Chor, Master’s dissertation University of Cologne, typescript (in the Max-Reger-Institut), Cologne 1993, pp. 23–28.

Note by Lindner on the protective cover (no. 53) of Reger’s autograph manuscript, Stadtmuseum Weiden/Max-Reger-Sammlung, shelf number: A 16.

Lindner 1922, pp. 239–242; in the 3rd edition then on pp. 300–303.

“Veröffentlicht (aus Adalbert Lindners Reger-Archiv)”, Breitkopf & Härtels Chorbibliothek no. 2951a/b.

1. Reception

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

This text is currently only available in German.

1. Stemma

2. Quellenbewertung

Der Edition liegt als Leitquelle die autographe Partitur zugrunde. Der auf dieser Quelle basierende posthume Erstdruck spielte für editorische Entscheidungen keine Rolle.

3. Sources

Autographe Partitur
posthumer Erstdruck

Object reference

Max Reger: Tantum ergo in g WoO VI/2, in: Reger-Werkausgabe, www.reger-werkausgabe.de/mri_work_00217.html, version 4.0, 18th December 2025.

Information

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