Harmonies du Soir (Organ Transcription)

Liszt Harmonies du Soir (Organ Transcription)

In 1902, after a publisher had refused to print Max Reger’s organ transcription of Franz Liszt’s second “Legende” for piano, Reger wrote to his friend Martin Krause that he was thinking of adapting Liszt’s “Harmonies du Soir” from the “Etudes d’exécution transcendante” for the organ.  Unfortunately Reger never carried out this plan.

The organ adaptation present here was written in the style of Max Reger by John David Peterson, Professor of Musicology at Memphis State University (Tennessee), who has become known through numerous scholarly publications.  Peterson’s transcription of this composition closes a chapter that the artistically productive Reger, a great organist and composer, had left unfinished.