Max Reger Der Mensch lebt und bestehet

Der Mensch lebt und bestehet nur eine kleine Zeit A man can live and flourish for but a little time,
and all the world must perish with all its pomp and fame.
One only is eternal and beyond all motion, and we are his possession.

Matthias Claudius
Translation: Jean Lunn

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Der Mensch lebt und bestehet nur eine kleine Zeit Der Mensch lebt und bestehet nur eine kleine Zeit,
und alle Welt vergehet mit ihrer Herrlichkeit.
Es ist nur Einer ewig und an allen Enden
und wir in seinen Händen.

Matthias Claudius

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Jürgen Schaarwächter
Translation (abridged): Elizabeth Robinson

Max Reger grew up as a Catholic in the Upper Palatinate and described himself as “Catholic to his fingertips.” By 1907, when he was appointed composition professor at the Leipzig Conservatory, he had become aware of the quality of the corpus of Protestant chorales. Adalbert Lindner reported Reger’s remark of 1898; “the Protestants don’t know what they have, with their chorales!” Reger had already come into close contact with the chorale at an early age. His friendship with the Protestant organist Karl Straube was exceptionally important in the following period, and when Reger married the divorced Protestant Elsa von Bercken in 1902, his break with the Catholic church was complete. Through Straube’s influence, Reger composed many works for use in the Protestant church, particularly in his time in Weiden

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