Weinberger’s Reger Project: Volume 8

A little over two weeks ago, the German label cpo released the eighth volume in Gerhard Weinberger’s project to record the complete organ works of Max Reger. Since each of those volumes consists of two CDs, this means that sixteen CDs have been released. This happens to be the total number of CDs in the OehmsClassics complete-works Reger project, recording performances by Bernhard Buttmann. The Editorial Reviews on the Amazon.com Web page note that this is the “penultimate volume;” but it does not say anything about the number of CDs in that ninth volume.

When I wrote about the seventh volume, which was released in August of last year, I was not shy about my patience wearing thin. However, I qualified my discontent by observing that one of the contributing factors was probably “pandemic weariness.” Nevertheless, to the extent that I have been using the Buttmann collection as a reference resource, I have to say that the Weinberger releases may not rise to the same level of utility.

Most frustrating has been the handling of the 52 “easy” chorale preludes collected as Opus 67. Buttmann accounted for all of them in numerical order on the first three of the four CDs in his second volume. Weinberger trickled out two of them on the second CD of his second volume with more substantial quantities in the fifth, sixth, and eighth volumes; and even the suggestion of numerical order seemed to be out of the question. Presumably, the final volume will tie up the loose ends in this collection.

Mind you, it is clear that these relatively short pieces were not intended to be performed in numerical order as a recital offering. On the other hand if one is trying to single out one of those pieces, a relatively coherent numerical ordering would be a useful asset! Thus, while I am equally impressed with how both Weinberger and Buttmann approach their performances of the Reger canon, I have to say that OehmsClassics gave significantly more thought to helping the serious listener locate specific compositions. For my part I have been able to rely on the indexing tools of Apple Music, but I would hardly expect others to follow my lead in this matter!