Fantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H

Historical context

This work, composed in 1900-1901, stands as a musical tribute dedicated to Johann Sebastian Bach, the great Leipzig Thomaskantor. Reger himself intended the piece as an apotheosis to Bach, aiming to build a “Gothic cathedral” to proclaim his deep reverence for his incomparable model. The author recalls being startled when Reger first played the opening measures on his piano, noting their “cyclopean force and rhythmic precision.” This composition is considered a pinnacle of Reger’s organ works and of organ literature in general, surpassing other compositions on the BACH motif, and is cited as a clear example of Reger’s powerful, expansive musical language from his youth.

The premiere was given by Karl Straube in the summer of 1900 in the Willibrord Cathedral in Wesel, as noted in the Zeittafel. Reger found the spirit of Bach’s work in this piece with complete independence, featuring strictly guided and sharply drawn contours, and employing the art of the finest counterpoint. The composition concludes with a great five-voice fugue over multiple themes and is permeated by tireless fantasy, constantly discovering new turns and surprising trains of thought. While Dr. Rod. von Mojzisovics, in the ‘Musikalisches Wochenblatt’ (1906), highlighted its novel use of the theme as an unchangeable, chromatically transposed motif, its harmonic ambiguity, and its function as a polyphonic expressive and textural device, many “doubters and eternally grumbling small spirits” misinterpreted the work, calling it “torn fantasy” or “cramped clinging of the disciple to his master.” Even Rheinberger, to whom the work was supposedly dedicated, reportedly shook his head vigorously upon reading it, illustrating the conservative resistance to Reger’s progressive style.

Drawn from Segnitz, Eugen, 1862-1927, Max Reger : Abriss seines Lebens und Analyse seiner Werke (1922); Unger, Hermann, 1886-1958, Max Reger; Darstellung seines Lebens, Wesens und Schaffens (1921); Lindner, Adalbert; Lindner, Adalbert, b. 1860, Max Reger : ein Bild seines Jugendlebens und künstlerischen Werdens (1922) — public domain, archive.org.