MAX REGER
When J. S. Bach died in Leipzig in 1750, his music fell into obscurity, and was replaced by new music in a new style — a scandalous example of the triumph of fashion over value. Many years later, his true greatness was acknowledged, and he has been deservedly revered ever since. But as we, in our time, enjoy his work, we should not congratulate ourselves on being more perceptive than his immediate successors, or morally superior to them: the arts today are still plagued by obedience to the latest fad, and all too often a flashy talent is mistaken for durable genius.
When Max Reger died in Leipzig in 1916, his devotion to the music of Bach had made him rightful heir to a long line of distinguished composers who recognized in Bach the master of them all: Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms. He has been similarly regarded by many outstanding performers: Schweitzer, Busoni, Casals, Landowska, and Gould. Reger was an active Bachist in both ways, as composer and as performer. In many of his organ works, especially his chorale fantasias, he followed in the footsteps of his great predecessor and, like Schumann and Liszt before him, he paid tribute by composing a piece based on the four notes B-A-C-H (in German notation, B stands for B flat, and H for B natural). As organist and pianist and conductor, he espoused the cause of Bach’s music, to good effect, throughout his career.
There is a third way, however, in which Reger can be accounted an important exemplar of the Bach tradition: as an improviser. Bach himself was renowned for his improvisations, and organists have long cultivated that skill, especially in England and Continental Europe — a notable exponent of it was Marcel Dupré in France. Reger, we are told, was at least Dupré’s equal, but he died too early for there to be any recorded evidence of what he could do. We do have indirect evidence, however, in the testimony of one of his pupils, and in an extraordinary feat of improvisation by that pupil.
Reger was a redoubtable teacher up until the outbreak of the first world war. Most of his pupils at the University of Leipzig were German, and several of them went on to notable careers, though not especially famous outside Germany. One of his pupils, subsequently famous only in England and Canada, was the prodigiously gifted organist, Quentin Maclean: his promise was early recognized by his father, himself an accomplished musician, who sent him to Germany to study with Reger while still only a teenager. Reger nourished his general musicianship and in particular his love of improvisation. And it was in those student years that he acquired a profound respect for Bach.
In 1914 Maclean was nineteen, and still in Germany. As an enemy alien, he was interned in Ruhleben. Prisoners were allowed to receive care parcels from the International Red Cross, and could make special requests for the contents. Most of them requested things like warm socks and canned food. Maclean requested the complete organ works of Bach. When he was freed in 1918, he had the entire oeuvre memorized.
Returning to England, Maclean worked as organist at Westminster Cathedral and as a composer, mainly of liturgical pieces and of serious concert pieces; he was also appointed the first official organist of the BBC. But he earned an excellent living, on the side, in light entertainment, becoming the pre-eminent cinema organist of his age — in silent movie days, incidental music, accompanying the action, was provided usually by a house pianist; but in a few of the larger cinemas, incidental music of much greater scope and colour was provided by installing a grand organ. Maclean quickly won wide admiration for the astute inventiveness with which he reflected and enhanced the drama on the screen. The need for this disappeared, of course, when the silent days were over and movies added specially composed music to the sound-track. But in the big cinemas that had installed an organ, the organ continued to be an integral and popular part of a night at the movies: double-features were fashionable and, in between the two features, the organist would play an entr’acte, an improvised medley of old favourites. Maclean remained the star of the theatre console in London for some years, and then emigrated to Canada, to perform the same function in Toronto, and to take up a post as organist of Holy Rosary church.
It was during his years in Toronto that Maclean displayed, one evening, a power of improvisation that left his professional colleagues stunned. Invited to a party at the home of the symphony orchestra’s conductor, he sat in a corner doodling away at the piano while everyone else socialized — he always did this, as a form of escape, for he was a very shy man. But he did have a party-trick which everyone enjoyed, playing improvisations on themes suggested by the guests, either classical or popular. On this occasion, at the host’s suggestion, he requested five tunes from his now attentive audience. These were agreed on and, after a healthy swig of his gin-and-tonic, he launched into a brilliant toccata on all five tunes, ending with a resounding flourish. Applause began, which he quelled with a wave of his hand. “No,” he said, “that was just for starters. I was thinking something out”. He took another swig of his drink, and then proceeded to play a series of short movements in which each tune, in turn, was treated as the subject of a four-part fugue. At the end of the fifth fugue, of course, astonished applause broke out. But this, too, he quelled. “Just a moment,” he said. “There’s one more way to do this”. Another swig of his drink, and he proceeded to play a quodlibet (this, mind you, on keyboard only, without benefit of a pedal-board for an extra line), in which all five themes were combined in simultaneous five-part counterpoint. It was such a display of extemporaneous virtuosity as none present, or few ever, had heard. The applause, correspondingly, was tremendous and prolonged. Modestly, Maclean accepted another drink.
Max Reger would have been proud of him. So, probably, would J. S. Bach.
