Max Reger and Jorge Bolet

A recording which is often forgotten is one Jorge went into the studio to set down on 29 February - 2 March,1980 in Kingsway Hall, London: 

BRAHMS Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel Op.24

REGER Variations & Fugue on a Theme of Telemann Op.134

(It was issued on LP in November 1981)

'The circumstances of the recording of the Reger and Brahms were a different cup of tea [from the 2 previous recordings Chopin & Godowsky (1977) & Liszt (1978).

As it was clear that all future recordings from Jorge would now be released on the Decca label [rather than on L'Oiseau-lyre], a lot of important Decca people passed by during the session. Also important journalists and critics showed up to get information. This made the Reger a hell of a job for Jorge who did not like variations put together by fixing takes. According to Jorge, there was also music in the silence as one variation moved into the next.  Some of the variations took a lot of time e.g. the one with broken octaves in both hands (Variation 21]. Jorge told me - actually whispering, rather - that he had got bored with hearing the key of B flat all the time.  Everybody in the crew feared the recording could not be finished within the reserved time, but everyone was completely flabbergasted that the recording of the Brahms was all done in the remaining last afternoon! As we all know by now, the Reger is landmark in recorded pianism!'

[Mattheus Smits]

LINK (at 21'56")

The Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Telemann, Op.134 Reger wrote the set in just eight days, between August 8 and 15, 1914. The variations are dedicated to the Dutch-German pianist and pedagogue James Kwast. The premiere was given about half a year later, on March 14, 1915, in Berlin by Frieda Kwast-Hodapp. The work was published by Simrock in 1914. Reger used the minuet from the “Minuet and Trio” in Telemann’s Tafelmusik in B-flat Major as the theme, which he found in Riemann’s Anleitung zum Generalbaβ-Spielen.

The resemblance to Brahms’s Händel Variations is immediately apparent considering the choice of a Baroque dance as theme, the identical key (B-flat major), the similar number of variations (23 and 25), and the concluding fugues.

There is a footnote in later editions, starting with the 1942 edition of Peters, which

indicates the origin of the theme as the “Menuett aus der Tafelmusik in B dur (Denkmäler Deutscher Tonkunst Bd. 61/62).” This footnote does not appear in the first edition and the 1928 edition of Peters. However, Reger used the minuet as it is given as an exercise in Riemann’s Anleitung zum Generalbaβ-Spielen. Riemann provides just the melody and a figured bass. There are several differences between Telemann’s original version and Riemann’s which indicate that Reger used the theme from Riemann’s treatise.

(Christian Peter Bohnenstengel, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2007)