Max Reger And The Sacred Song CD - Import

I recorded these pieces during two days of recording at the newly renovated Helen Hosmer Hall at the Crane School of Music (SUNY-Potsdam) in December 2000, just a few weeks before taking up the baton as Resident Conductor of the Opera Program at the University of Illinois. In October of 2000 I had played what I personally referred to as my 'farewell tour' (that's right, it is my flare for the dramatic that actually makes me quite effective conducting opera! And..of course, it wasn't much of a farewell tour since no one noticed I was gone! HA!!), in a series of concerts that included Schumann's Nachtstucke and the first volume of Liszt's Annees de Pelerinage. In early December, I recorded the Nachtstucke, along with Faschingsschwank aus Wien and Kinderszenen, with the intention of marking my 'departure' from solo playing with some recordings of works that had some meaning, or at least history, to me.

Since my young childhood, I have always been attracted to literature that was, perhaps, not the most standard or widely embraced. I was a teenager when I first discovered Nachtstucke myself, and I've always thought the work, if handled appropriately, can be quite effective. It requires a certain knowledge of style of Schumann, and a bravery to realize that tempo-unity is pedantic and amateurish and simply does not work in many of his compositions. Nachtstucke is senseless if one has not figured this out.

But, more important, there was a poetic imagery that I connected with in the writings of Schumann about this work in particular.

Faschingsschwank is far from obscure, of course, but it is hardly on the 'hits list' that includes Carneval and Kreisleriana. I think Perahia's "Aldeburgh" recording helped to bring this work into a lot of student's repertoire in the '90s. I simply found it to be a powerful contrast to the Nachtstucke, and a work that provides an enticing foil to the aims of Nacht and Kinderszenen. Kinderszenen simply is what it is: a poignant reflection on childhood from the perspective of an old poet. What could that mean to me? When you're a kid who has confronted mortality on an extensive and even brutal level...well, you grow up quickly with at least some sort of perspective. That's all the story I need to tell, Kinderszenen simply gave me a vehicle.