Max Reger
Max Reger, whose full name was Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger, was a German composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and music educator. He was born on March 19, 1873, in Brand, Bavaria, and died of a heart attack on May 11, 1916, in Leipzig, aged 43.
The son of a rural schoolteacher, Reger grew up in the town of Weiden. After attending the Bayreuth Festival at the age of 15, he decided to devote himself to music. He studied music theory at the Sondershausen Conservatory with Hugo Riemann and studied piano with Adolf Schulze. He later followed Riemann to Wiesbaden, where he also studied composition with Albert Fuchs and played the harpsichord at Fuchs's gatherings devoted to early music.
From 1890 to 1896, Reger taught music theory, piano, and organ at the Wiesbaden Conservatory. After a nervous breakdown, he resigned and spent several years at his parents' home, concentrating exclusively on composition. He moved to Munich in September 1901 after receiving an offer to give concerts, and his rapid rise to fame began there. During his first season in Munich, he appeared in ten concerts as an organist, pianist, and chamber accompanist. He composed a large number of works for organ and voice during this period, as well as three celebrated Munich masterpieces: the Quintet for Piano and Strings, Op. 64, and two sonatas for piano and violin, Op. 72 and Op. 84.
Reger performed actively as a conductor and pianist, including outside Germany, and toured St. Petersburg in 1906. From 1907 he worked in Leipzig, first as music director of the University of Leipzig until 1908 and then as a professor of composition at the Leipzig Conservatory, a position he held until his death. His students included the Norwegian composer Sigurd Islandsmoen, the Spanish composer Cristóbal Taltabull, and the German composer Alfred von Beckerath.
During the last decade of his life, Reger received exceptional recognition in Germany. In May 1910, a three-day festival devoted to his music took place in Dortmund. It was organized by the local musical figures Georg Hüttner and Karl Holtschneider with the support of the noted violinist Henri Marteau. Reger was buried at the Waldfriedhof cemetery in Munich.
Reger's wife, Elsa, née von Bagenski, worked extensively after his death to organize and promote his legacy. In 1930 she published a memoir titled My Life with and for Max Reger. The couple adopted two girls.