Customer Reviews

Reger: Variations and Fugue on a Theme of J. S. Bach / Humoresques / Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Telemann

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Every classical music fan has a short list of "missing" ecordings -- dream pairings of artist and repertoire that for one reason or another, never materialized. Why, we ask, is there no pirate tape of Furtwangler conducting Beethoven's Missa Solemnis? Or, to go to my list, no Glenn Gould recording of Max Reger's monumental Variations And Fugue On A Theme Of Bach. Reger was a very serious German composer at the turn of the century with a Bach fixation that extended to writing six extended pieces for solo violin.

His piano music, which is playful in an academic way, leans towards variation sets and fugues, an odd place indeed to find Canadian pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin, a specialist in the strange byways of the romantic piano. This is a typically good-sounding Hyperion piano recording, and Hamelin's playing has a romantic richness of tone that I'm not sure is entirely appropriate to the music, but I was raised on the austerity of Rudolf Serkin's rather severe 1986 CBS recording. The coupling is a similarly grand traversal of the Telemann Variations, which to my ears lacks the playfulness of Jorge Bolet's London recording.

There are pianists and then there is Marc-Andre Hamelin. This man's reputation for technical genius is justified, but he's got brains too. Which is only appropriate, as Reger's sheer braininess is his best-known characteristic.

Ordinarily I should have preferred a slightly more resonant recording than Hyperion's - if Hamelin's tonal palette didn't have such a Richter-like range, he would run the risk of dryness - but at least with such hyper-lucid sound you get to hear every, and I mean every, detail in a permanently satisfying manner. The playing is stunningly virtuosic. Hardly any other pianist in any era could play this music at all; no other pianist, it's safe to conclude, could play it better.

When I hear CDs like this one, I bend the knee to thank God that I have no ambitions of earning my living at the piano. Very illuminating booklet notes complete a superb package.

Reger's "Variations and Fugue on a Theme by G.P. Telemann" ranks as one of the finest large scale sets of piano variations ever composed. Interestingly, both the original theme and the set of variations represent the work of two highly prolific composers born nearly two centuries apart. The performance of this work, and its companions - "Variations and Fugue on a Theme by J.S. Bach" and five "Humoresques" - are interpreted with utmost sensitivity and intelligence by the Canadian born pianist, Marc-Andre Hamelin. The recording is outstanding in every way. An essential CD, even if this is the only Reger you have in your collection!

The Humoresques are as wonderful to listen to as any I have heard. The Variations on a theme of Teleman are particularly interesting, varied and brilliant. One is stunned listening to them. Hamelin has all of the attributes that one wants for music of this sort. His playing is brilliant, with a full range of tonal level. There is a great subtleness in both the music and in the playing. The quality of the recording is superb. Perhaps the merest tad too much brilliance of sound. But I liked it very much.

Max Reger is considered to be the most important composer to emulate Brahms style of composing and moved German music forward into the 20th century. He was a very important composer of his time, and surpassed many of the 19th century composers in the amount of music he wrote during his short life. Reger composed more than 250 songs, over 150 piano pieces, and a large amount of organ and chamber music. He was a teacher of music and an excellent pianist. He was a driven man and consumed by hard living. He died when he was only 43 years old under suspicious circumstances, but some say it was from a heart attack. Reger is famous for always saying, "I must work. I have no time to waste because I feel that my life will be short. I have drank and smoked more than normal and I will be exhausted earlier than normal." Reger drank, ate, smoked and composed to excess. Reger composed in every form, except for opera. His organ music is considered by many to be second only to Bach's in depth and significance. This, along with much of his output, requires a large degree of virtuosity. This cd contains some of the largest and most emotionally draining music in its genre. Reger's music is a combination of Bach's Baroque era and Liszt's virtuosity and Romantic harmony. The first part of the cd is the Bach Variations, which is Reger's piano masterpiece. Hamelin's superb virtuosity allows him to focus purely on the music and he does an amazing job with this extremely difficult work. The Telemann Variations are more decorative, and as a result are much closer to the Baroque concept of the variation. The Five Humoresques are so beautiful and you can hear that the Reger's inspiration for writing the Humoresques are definitely from Brahms.

Most of the great audiences consider that Brahms -the late heir of a tradition initiated by Bach and followed by Beethoven (Goldberg and Diabelli)- reached the hitherto with the Variations genre. That obligates us to remind once more this sublime work, to my mind the most ambitious, robust and pyramidal piano work of this Swiss composer. Based on a "Tempo di Minuetto" theme from the B flat major suite in Part III of the "Tafelmusik". He wrote a huge sequence of 23 variations, uninhibited with technical difficulties and notorious effectiveness. The variations are arranged in growing order of importance.
Dedicated to the pianist James Kwast and introduced to the public on 10 March 1915 in Berlin.
Hamelin did it again. One of the most pyramidal, relevant and talented pianists in the world.!

Marc-Andre Hamelin, more and more, reveals himself to be a God-send. This pianist is never, never boring, and after you've seen him in concert, you'll feel a very intimate connection to everything upon which his fingers have been graced... This is a very serious possession. To many of my friends, it has served as the means by which they are cleansed and converted. And not just to Reger! You won't be sorry if you get this disc, but you might be sorry if you don't!