Reger: Piano Music

Reger's music is an amalgam of Bachian counterpoint and chromatic Romantic harmony—the result is writing of great density. This is particularly true of the 'Bach' Variations, Reger's piano masterpiece. Hamelin's superb virtuosity allows him to focus purely on the music, so keeping any sense of heaviness from infiltrating piano writing which, in other hands, can sound merely laboured.

The 'Telemann' Variations are much less chromatic, more decorative, and as a result are much closer to the Baroque concept of 'variation'. Their virtuosity is more obvious, with many opportunities for the soloist to display his fingerwork.

The Five Humoresques reveal Reger in lighter mode. Here the inspiration is surely from Brahms.

CDA66996  72 minutes 37 seconds
GRAMOPHONE CRITICS' CHOICE
PENGUIN GUIDE ROSETTE
‘Others have courageously fought the cause of this complex and neglected repertoire but few, if any, have brought to it such compelling fusion of temperament, intellect, and prodigious pianistic fluen ...
‘This is a marvellous disc’ (BBC Music Magazine)
‘I have never heard Reger played with greater imagination or persuasive eloquence. Hamelin seems to command an almost limitless range of keyboard colour. Those who have yet to be won over by Reger's k ...