Max Reger - The Cello Suites

Max REGER (1873-1916)

The Cello Suites

A complete recording of the three solo suites, Op. 131c

Suite No.1 in G major, Op. 131c

Suite No.2 in D minor, Op. 131c

Suite No.3 in A minor, Op. 131c

Christian Erben (Cello)

Recorded at Bethanienkirche, Leipzig; January 24-26, 2022

On his new GENUIN album, cellist Christian Erben, a member of the renowned Gewandhaus Orchestra, presents one of the most intriguing oeuvres for his instrument from the 20th century: Max Reger's three suites for solo cello. Baroque grandeur and intellectual depth, late-Romantic harmony, and masterful counterpoint: no one had explored the soloistic possibilities of perhaps the most human of all instruments as comprehensively since Johann Sebastian Bach as Max Reger did. Christian Erben delves into the immense suites down to the finest detail and brings their tonal intricacies to light!

Max Reger does not keep the suite in the strict Baroque sense, but as a free sequence of three, at most four movements of different character. He always begins with a prelude , in order to set the movement in motion with a barely interrupted sequence of sixteenth notes.

The Gavotte and the Gigue in Suite No. 2 are part of the traditional core movements of the suite, but he breaks up this form with a Largo , which seems like a wistful, retrospective soliloquy.

With Max Reger, solo literature for strings experienced a renaissance that was to continue for half a century in works by Hindemith , Bartók , Honegger and others.