7th August 2026, Newly published

Arrangements for piano solo I

Volume III/6, published by Carus-Verlag, is now available.

Volume 6 of the section containing arrangements of works by other composers is composed of arrangements for piano solo (part I). As early as the 1890s, Reger began focussing on arrangements for piano recitals. A large portion of these arrangements is dedicated to famous organ works by Johann Sebastian Bach (Bach-B1). But he also enriched piano pieces by Friedrich Kuhlau (Kuhlau-B1), Franz Schubert (Schubert-B1) and Frédéric Chopin (Chopin-B1 and -B4 resp.) with technically highly demanding additions intended for the virtuosos of his time. His arrangements of Bach’s chorale preludes (Bach-B4) are, by contrast, written for didactic purposes. With these arrangements, Reger wanted to make these “symphonic poems in miniature” accessible for piano instructions. The piano versions of the five slow movements from the symphonies by Johannes Brahms (Brahms-B4) are intended for domestic music-making. They are connected with Reger’s interpretations of Brahms’s works during his time as director of music at the court of Meiningen.

Among the numerous added or updated pages in the digital sections of the RWA are texts about the dedicatees of the arrangements mentioned above (including Ferruccio Busoni, Alfred Grünfeld, Frederic Lamond, Heinrich Ordenstein, Martha Remmert and Alexander Siloti). Furthermore there is a detailed essay on the application of Hugo Riemann’s theory of phrasing in Reger’s early arrangements as well as an overview on the Bach organ works edited by William Thomas Best, which Reger used as a source for several of his Bach arrangements.