Max Reger
Reger worked as an organist, teacher and conductor and died at forty-three, having written a very large amount of music in about twenty years. He took Bach as his model at a time when most German composers were arguing about Wagner, and the result is counterpoint of Bach's density carried by harmony of Wagner's period.
The harmony moves fast. A phrase can pass through several keys before it settles, and chords that would be turning points in Brahms go by as passing detail. This is why his music is often called difficult to follow: there is no shortage of tunes, but the ground under them keeps shifting.
He liked forms that impose their own discipline: fugue, variations, chorale settings, and the classical four movement plan. The two quartets of Op. 54 are early examples of that, written in 1900, and they keep the outward shape of a Haydn quartet while filling it with chromatic writing.
What to listen for
- Key changes that arrive without warning, often several within one phrase.
- All four instruments busy at once, with the melody handed around rather than held.
- Sudden and extreme dynamic marks. Reger asks for changes that most composers would spread over several bars.
- Classical outlines (sonata form, ternary form, fugue) used as a frame for material that pulls against them.
Source: Max Reger