M. Reger. Series of c.89 autograph letters signed, to the publishers Hugo and Gustav Bock, 1909-1915

Max Reger

Remarkable series of c.89 autograph letters signed ("Reger"), to the publishers Hugo and Gustav Bock, THE MAJORITY APPARENTLY UNRECORDED AND UNPUBLISHED

recording in great detail Reger's relationship with the Berlin publishing firm of Bote & Bock, discussing many of Reger's compositions, including op.76, 82, 100, 106, 112, 113, 115, 117, 118, 120, 123, 125, 126, 128, 129, 130, some letters with musical examples

over 320 pages, mostly large 8vo, nine letters on postcards, with one letter signed (4 October 1912), docketed by the recipients, some letters with punch holes, a few newspaper cuttings, Leipzig, Meiningen, Tegernsee and elsewhere, 1909-1915, a few small tears, some punch holes slightly affecting text

A REGER DISCOVERY. 

To judge from the listing of Reger's letters in the online Max-Reger-Portal, only around 30 in the present collection would appear to be recorded or published: some of these are to be found, often only in extract form, in Lotte Taube's Max Regers Meisterjahre (1909–1916) (1941); others survive institutionally in Meiningen in the form of transcripts. 

Hugo Bock (1848-1932), had run the venerable German publishing house of Bote & Bock from the age of 23 and was largely responsible for building the company's international reputation; Gustav Bock (1882-1953) was Hugo's oldest son. In 1908, the year before the present correspondence begins, the company acquired the firm of Lauterbach & Kuhn in Leipzig, and thus the rights to much of Reger's music. This move angered Reger, who made it his aim to end his relationship with the firm as quickly as possible. In the end, up to 1913, Bote & Bock published Reger's works bearing the opus numbers 103b to 129, among them the third clarinet sonata (op.107), the three Geistliche Gesänge (op.110), as well as the great Meiningen orchestral works. The last letter in the series dates from August 1915; only nine months later the composer was dead.

LITERATURE:

Jürgen Schaarwächter, ed., Max Reger: Briefe an den Verlag Ed. Bote & G. Bock [Schriftenreihe des Max-Reger-Instituts, Band XXII] (2011); Max-Reger-Portal (Max-Reger-Institut/Elsa-Reger-Stiftung)