52 Chorale Preludes, Op. 67

52 chorale preludes
by Max Reger
Max Reger recording organ rolls of some of the chorale preludes on the Welte Philharmonic Organ in 1913
Native name	Zweiundfünfzig leicht ausführbare Vorspiele zu den gebräuchlichsten evangelischen Chorälen
Catalogue	Op. 67
Based on	Protestant chorales
Composed	1900 (1900)–02
Published	1900 (1900)–03

52 chorale preludes, Op. 67, is a collection of 52 settings of popular Protestant hymns for organ by Max Reger, composed between 1900 and 1902. Originally published in three volumes between 1900 and 1903 with the cover title "52 Choralvorspiele für Orgel" (52 chorale preludes for organ), the full title of the collection was "Zweiundfünfzig leicht ausführbare Vorspiele zu den gebräuchlichsten evangelischen Chorälen".

In a letter to the publishers Lauterbach & Kuhn in 1902 when he had only composed 50 of the chorale preludes, Reger wrote, "None are technically difficult and the melodies have been collected by an organist of 30 years experience. I can surely say without any arrogance that since J. S. Bach, no such collection has been published!" While he composed some settings in Weiden in 1900, he wrote the majority of the prelude in Munich between September 1901 and October 1902. Reger's full title for the collection, "Zweiundfünfzig leicht ausführbare Vorspiele zu den gebräuchlichsten evangelischen Chorälen", has been translated as "Fifty-two easy preludes on the most common Lutheran chorales". They were originally published in three volumes with the cover title "52 Choralvorspiele für Orgel" (52 chorale preludes for organ) between 1900 and 1903: Volume 1, Nos. 1–15; Volume 2, Nos. 16–36; Volume 3, Nos. 37–52.

The idea of writing such a collection dates back to 1893. Its size and form—short pieces with four-part writing and almost no episodes—has similarities with the 46 "minuaturist" chorale preludes of Bach's Orgelbüchlein. The wording of the title reflects Reger's concern that his shorter pieces should be accessible and without technical difficulties: his organ works had previously been criticized for being too difficult and complex. In a 1904 letter to his friend Karl Straube, organist at the Thomaskirche, advising him on which pieces to perform in a Leipzig recital, Reger indicated his own preferences, picking out O Welt ich muß dich lassen and Vater unser as amongst the most beautiful. There is a musical "echo effect" in each of these pieces, with the chorale played a second time only on the manuals with a subdued dynamic. The musicologist Christopher Anderson compares Reger's setting of "O Welt" with the last piece from Eleven Chorale Preludes, Op. 122 of Johannes Brahms, published posthumously in 1902, which uses a double echo effect and has a similar mood of "melancholic leave-taking". Reger's compositional style in the preludes, although intended to be simple from a technical point of view, was musically complex, occasionally mirroring musical features of chorale preludes in Bach's collection: Reger's setting of "Machs mir, Gott, nach deiner Güt" has several similarities with O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß, BWV 622—one of Reger's favourites—with the same type of flattened sixth at the close.