Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in F Minor, Op. 114
Episoden, Op. 115:
I. Andante
II. Andantino con moto
III. Allegretto
IV. Andante sostenuto
V. Larghetto
Lose Blätter, Op. 113 - XII. Choral

A huge mass of different sounds

„I’ve been playing and studying Reger’s piano music for a long time now. In the 1990s, not long after graduation, I recorded his complete works for solo piano. Ever since then, I’ve been featuring Reger frequently in my recitals: not only solo piano pieces, but chamber music including violin, clarinet and cello sonatas, the works for two pianos, piano trios, quartets, and Lieder. Reger composed an impressive quantity of music in almost all genres.

Of course I’ve been familiar with the Piano Concerto for a long time, but I only recorded it for the first time live in January 2017. That is the source for the recording on this CD. To be honest, at first I had my doubts about this piece. So many notes, all the dense chords, and rapid changes of register –daunting leaps across the keyboard! – along with extreme dynamics (pppp and ffff).

We already encounter that kind of superabundance elsewhere in Reger, but here he takes it to the extreme. The “full” piano is usually playing in tandem with the full orchestra. In our rehearsals, Joshua Weilerstein, the Radio Philharmonic and I were constantly working on trying to achieve the right balance between the orchestra and the piano...“ (Interview with Markus Becker from the Booklet)