Search - Reger, Stein, Bamberg Symphony :: Variations & Fugue on a Theme By Mozart Op 132

Counterpoint

T. Beers | Arlington, Virginia United States | 10/23/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Who honors a composer more, another composer who reimagines his predecessor's theme as living music, or other people who want the man and his music safely interred in some museum? The other reviewer seems offended that Reger pilfered a Mozart theme and wrote ... well, Reger! Last time I looked, Mozart's music was public domain, and it was in Reger's day (1873-1916) too; it enjoys no special status that walls it off from creative use - or even misuse - by other composers. (Neither can I imagine that Mozart would have been much interested in having his music reduced to the status of artifact.) In short, Reger's composition 'Mozart Variations' requires no justification beyond evaluating what it is and whether it works and how well it works. And this is what I hear: Reger's development of Mozart's famous theme is always interesting; each of the variations, as well as the concluding fugue, is imaginatively conceived and gorgeously orchestrated; and the whole thing could have been written by no composer other than Max Reger. That said, I'm afraid Horst Stein's at times lacklustre performances on this well-recorded Koch disc just don't qualify as first-rate arguments for Reger's genius (not too strong a word). Try Valery Polyansky on Chandos, or Leif Segerstam on BIS, or Colin Davis on Orfeo if you want to make the acquaintance of an off-the-beaten-path, late Romantic master who had the arrogant cheek to treat Mozart as a colleague rather than as a sainted corpse. And if you think that sounds disrespectful of Mozart, you can always go out and buy your umpteenth recording of Wolfie's A major sonata and let it go at that."