Max Reger, Phantasie über "Wie schön leucht’ uns der Morgenstern", Opus 40 no. 1 (1899)

This piece really is a knockout, one of the top works in Reger’s oeuvre. The inexhaustible invention and arresting originality of his music do not cease to amaze me. There is something richly satisfying and I would even say deeply nourishing about his music, quite unlike any other composer I know. One of the loveliest passages in the final fugue, at 14:34-14:51, is also a compositional key moment. Oddly enough, precisely this moment is marred by contrapuntal errors in all scores and performances I know. I will post a separate video on why I emended this passage as I did.