Max Reger - Sonatas and Pieces

Eight years after he had composed his first two Clarinet Sonatas op. 49, Reger confessed in a letter to a friend that he was once again committing “a new crime against harmony and counterpoint.” He was referring to the Sonata for Clarinet and Pianoforte op. 107. Reger made a point of not destroying the chamber music character of the work by having too much virtuosic padding – “Brahms developed classic examples of what the style was meant to be like.” Alongside the sonatas, the Urtext edition also contains two charming “encores”: a Tarantella in g minor and an Album Lead in E flat major. The Sonata op. 49.2 is for clarinet in A. The other pieces are for clarinet in B flat.