Max Reger was born on this day (March 19th) in 1873. While researching his life and music career, I came across a poem by Friedrich Hebbel, “Requiem” that starts with the words “Seele, vergiss sie nicht” (Soul, forget them not) that Reger set to music. I was just reading about Hebbel because yesterday (March 18th) was his birthday.
Before we talk about the “Requiem”, let’s look at the playwright and poet Hebbel and composer and musician Reger.
Friedrich Hebbel
Friedrich Hebbel was born March 18th in 1813 in Dithmarschen (then part of the Danish kingdom), grew up poor, and relied on other people or stipends to support him financially. While he had been publishing poems from an early age, he became first known in Germany when his tragedy “Judith” was printed. Followed by that success, he published his first collection of poems.
The 1840s were rather tumultuous for Hebbel: He was in a relationship with Elise Lensing, had two sons with her but refused to marry her, barely spent any time with her in Hamburg but traveled in Italy and ended up in Vienna. There he fell in love with the actress Christine Enghaus who he married in 1846. By 1847, his two sons with Elise and his son with Christine had all died. Only his daughter Titi survived into adulthood. In the meantime, Hebbel was very productive, writing the acclaimed “Maria Magdalena”, “Agnes Bernauer”, “Gyges und sein Ring”, and “Die Nibelungen”.
While he was in favor of the democratic movements in Germany (Märzrevolution 1848/49), he was still loyal to the monarchy. His writings were not political by nature but rather focused on the tragic and fateful circumstances that ruled people’s lives. Hebbel died on December 13th, 1863 in Vienna.
Max Reger
Max Reger was born on March 19th, 1873 as the son of a teacher. From early childhood on, he received a musical education, and after attending the Bayreuth Festspiele in 1888, he decided to become a musician. After his studies, he worked as a piano and organ teacher. By 1898, after his military service and setbacks in his professional life, he was sick, addicted, and indebted.
After his recovery, Reger moved to Munich and in 1902 he married Elsa von Bercken, who was not only Protestant but also divorced. Reger is excommunicated.
Professionally, Reger entered a productive phase as a composer and a pianist. In 1911, he took the position of Hofkapellmeister (court music director) in Meinigen but still taught at the University of Leipzig, composed and gave concerts. This workload led to a breakdown in 1914, his alcoholism also didn’t seem to have been cured entirely. In 1916, he died of heart failure.
Max Reger is most known for his compositions for the organ. Just like Bach, he had a special talent for writing Protestant hymns, despite being Catholic. He took the baroque genres of the Choral Prelude, Fantasia, Fugue and Passacaglia, and developed them further. But soundwise Reger was closer to Brahms and Liszt than the baroque composers.
Especially his Fantasia works for organ were complicated and needed the most technically advanced and modern organs to be played appropriately. But he didn’t only compose for organs, but also for piano, harmonium, violins, orchestra, he wrote chamber music and vocal work. While he enjoyed a high standing and accolade during his life, Reger and his organ works were also criticized, especially by traditionalists.
Requiem
The following video is the Requiem op. 144b “Seele, vergiss sie nicht”, also called “Hebbel Requiem”, by Max Reger (1915), lyrics by Friedrich Hebbel (written in 1840, published in 1857). Reger dedicated the Requiem to the fallen soldiers of 1914/15. It is his last finished work.
Hebbel’s title Requiem alludes to the beginning of a mass for the dead, “Requiem aeternam” which means “eternal rest”. But this is where the reference to religion ends. The poem is a call to the ‘soul’ as to not forget the dead because if we do, they will struggle and feel forsaken forever. The only way to save them from that fate is to remember them and not close ourselves off from them.
Reger first wrote Hebbel’s poem as a motet for an unaccompanied male choir in 1912. When the war broke out in 1914, Reger wanted to write a piece to commemorate the fallen and wounded soldiers. He then wrote Hebbel’s poem as a requiem following in the tradition of Johannes Brahms who had written A German Requiem before. The topic of rest is still there, it is however non-liturgical and not in Latin.
The poem was also set to music by Peter Cornelius as a funeral motet for a six-part chorus in 1863, the year Hebbel died.
Requiem
Seele, vergiß sie nicht,
Seele, vergiß nicht die Toten!
Sieh, sie umschweben dich,
Schauernd, verlassen,
Und in den heiligen Gluten,
Die den Armen die Liebe schürt,
Atmen sie auf und erwarmen,
Und genießen zum letzten Mal
Ihr verglimmendes Leben.
Seele, vergiß sie nicht,
Seele, vergiß nicht die Toten!
Sieh, sie umschweben dich,
Schauernd, verlassen,
Und wenn du dich erkältend
Ihnen verschließest, erstarren sie
Bis hinein in das Tiefste.
Dann ergreift sie der Sturm der Nacht,
Dem sie, zusammengekrampft in sich,
Trotzten im Schoße der Liebe,
Und er jagt sie mit Ungestüm
Durch die unendliche Wüste hin,
Wo nicht Leben mehr ist, nur Kampf
Losgelassener Kräfte
Um erneuertes Sein!
Seele, vergiß sie nicht,
Seele, vergiß nicht die Toten!
Requiem
Soul, forget them not!
forget not the dead!
See, they hover around you,
Shuddering, forsaken,
And in the holy ardour
Which love rouses in the poor,
They breathe once more and take on warmth
And enjoy for one last time
Their fading life.
Soul, forget them not!
Soul, forget not the dead!
See, they hover around you,
Shuddering, forsaken,
And if, growing cold,
You close yourself to them, they stiffen
To the very depths of their being.
The storm of night then seizes them
Which they, huddled together,
Defied in the womb of love,
And it pursues them tempestuously
Through the endless desert wastes,
Where life no longer exists, only the struggle
Of unleashed forces
Struggling for renewed being!
Soul, forget them not!
Soul, forget not the dead!
