M. Drożdżowski - 8 Preludes and Fugues by Max Reger for guitar

Reger Max Johann Baptist, born 19 March 1873 in Brand (Bavaria), died 11 May 1916 in Leipzig, German composer, conductor, pianist and organist. He received his basic musical education at home. Initially taught by his parents, he then took lessons from the organist A. Lindner. At Lindner's insistence, he decided to devote himself to his profession as a musician. Between 1890 and 1893 he deepened his musical knowledge under H. Riemann. He continued his teaching work in composition and organ playing from 190 - 07 at the Royal Academy of Music in Munich and from 1907 - 16 at the conservatory in Leipzig. In recognition of his merits, he received two honorary doctorates in Jena and Berlin. In 1911, he joined the court of the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in Meiningen, initially as conductor and from 1913 as general music director.

Maks Reger became famous above all for his organ compositions. Already in Wiesbaden, he developed an admiration for Protestant musical forms, which he linked to his great model Johann Sebastian Bach, although he himself was a Catholic. Reger rediscovered the old Baroque chorales, fantasias and fugues and further refined them. He went down in history as one of the outstanding polyphonists of the neo-romantic era. Composing during the heyday of programme music and musical drama, he created an individual style akin to Brahms' neo-classicism. In Reger's works, traditional forms were revived, but realised on the basis of developed harmonic means, which are an expression of the decomposition of the major-minor system (blurring of differences between modes, frequent modulations, strong chromaticism). The essence of Reger's harmonics is the frequent change of tonality by way of modulation, using various forms of alteration, enharmonic substitution of notes. His works exerted a certain influence on the first period of K. Szymanowski's oeuvre. His pupils included: Joseph Hass, Hermann Grabner, , Willy Schmidt - Gentner (composer of film music).

The 8 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 117 were written in the original for solo violin between 1909 and 12 in Leipzig. These are the years considered by many of Reger's biographers to be the high point in the development of his work. All eight pieces are within the idiom and scale of the guitar. I have included the exact appliqué for the fingers of the left hand. I have changed the keys in the following numbers: No. 1 - B minor to A minor, No. 2 - G minor to E minor, No. 4 (the monumental Chaconne) - G minor to E minor, No. 6 - D minor to B minor and No. 8 - E minor to D minor.

With this arrangement of 8 Preludes and Fugues Op. 117 by Max Reger for solo guitar, I would like to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of this great composer.

Mirosław Drożdżowski