Max Reger (1873-1916)
Clarinet Quintet in A major, Op.146
String Quartet in E flat major, Op.109

Max Reger owed his early musical leanings to the example and enthusiasm of his father, a schoolmaster and amateur musician, and his early training to the town organist of Weiden, Adalbert Lindner. Reger was born in 1873 at Brand in the Upper Palatinate of Bavaria. The following year the family moved to Weiden and it was there that he spent his childhood and adolescence, entering a course of teacher training. Lindner had sent examples of Reger's early work as a composer to Hugo Riemann, who accepted him as a pupil, initially at Sondershausen and then, as his own assistant, in Wiesbaden. Military service, which affected Reger's health and spirits, was followed by a period at home with his parents in Weiden and a continuing series of compositions, in particular for the organ. These included a monumental series of chorale fantasias and other works, often