University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Music in wartime: Max Reger's final organ work, the Fantasy and Fugue in D minor, Op. 135b

Choi, Mina

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/109001

Description

Title
Music in wartime: Max Reger's final organ work, the Fantasy and Fugue in D minor, Op. 135b
Author(s)
Choi, Mina
Issue Date
2020
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Kinderman, William
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Robinson, Dana
Committee Member(s)
  • Carrillo, Carlos
  • Mattax Moersch, Charlotte
Department of Study
School of Music
Discipline
Music
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
A.Mus.D. (doctoral)
Keyword(s)
  • Max Reger
  • organ
  • Romantic
  • Karl Straube
  • music in war
  • Fantasy and Fugue in D minor, Op. 135b
  • World War I
Language
en
Abstract
From the outbreak of the war in 1914 until his death in 1916, Reger had been torn between the wave of strong patriotic sentiments felt by many, and realization of the immense tragedy brought on by the conflict. Reger, of course, died during the war and did not live to experience the grim outcome, but he still saw much of the catastrophe that had unfolded. This tension between the feeling of patriotism and the lamenting acknowledgement of tragedy is reflected in Reger’s wartime works. Reger’s patriotic response is present in his compositions from the first year of the war: Eine Vaterländische Ouvertüre (An Overture for the Fatherland), Op.140, from September 1914, and the Requiem, which dates from December of that year. Both pieces are dedicated to the German army. While turning his attention to composing “patriotic” compositions, Reger also envisioned constructing “ein neues großes Orgelwerk (a new major organ work)” in D minor, which is in the same key as his two settings of Requiem (Op. 144b and Op.145a) and Trauerode (Op.145/1) written for the dead soldiers in war. The Fantasy and Fugue in D minor, Op. 135b has received some detailed scholarly attention in relation to its collaborative editorship with Karl Straube; yet the piece deserves closer examination in connection with the complex circumstances of its composition. In particular, a series of revisions by Reger and some mysteries concerning Straube’s involvement during this time shed new light on the genesis of this work, clarifying Reger’s tensional ambivalence between cultural patriotism and the sorrowful acknowledgement of tragedy in wartime.
Type of Resource
  • text
  • still image
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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/109001
Copyright and License Information
©2020 Mina Choi

Owning Collections

Doctoral Project Theses [Option 2] - Music PRIMARY