Elsa Reger

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Elsa Reger (born on October 25, 1870 in Kolberg as Margarete Ulrike Augusta Marie Karoline Elsa von Bagensteg (also Bagensky) ; died on May 3, 1951 in Bonn ) was Max Reger's wife and was one of his estate administrators. She also emerged as the author of her autobiography .

Life

Elsa was born as the daughter of the Kolberg captain Ernst Hugo Robert von Bagensteg (also Bagenski) and his wife Augusta Karoline Josepha Marie Theresia Fanny Olga, née Reichsfreiin von Seckendorff -Aberdar.

On February 8, 1891, she married the future Prussian Major General Franz von Bercken (1863–1922), from whom she divorced in October 1899. In 1893 she met Max Reger on a summer vacation in Wiesbaden , where she took singing lessons from him. During a visit in 1899, when Reger wooed her, he was initially turned down by her.

Several years later she met Max Reger again at a concert in Munich and now allowed him to advertise her. She finally married him in a civil registry office on October 25, 1902 in Munich, and in church on December 7, 1902 in Bad Boll . Since she was divorced and Protestant, this resulted in Reger's excommunication. Her mother Auguste supported the decision to marry and even moved to live with her in Munich, where she died in 1907. Elsa subsequently lived with her husband in Leipzig, Meiningen and Jena. However, the marriage was marred by Max Reger's constant work and occasional flight into alcohol on the one hand, and Elsa Reger's nervous nature and health ailments on the other. The couple adopted two daughters: Marie Martha Heyer (1905–1969, adopted 1908) as Christa Reger and later Selma Charlotte Meinig as Lotti Reger  (1907–1963, adopted 1909).

After Reger's death on one of the usual days of school in Leipzig, Elsa Reger saw it as her main task to honor the memory of her husband. Immediately after his death she campaigned for the founding of the Max Reger Archive (first in Jena, then in Weimar, today part of the Meiningen museums ), published her autobiography Mein Leben mit und für Max Reger in 1930, and had one published Letter tape. She also founded the Max Reger Institute / Elsa Reger Foundation in 1947 .

She initially kept the urn with Reger's ashes at home in Jena. When Elsa Reger lived in Weimar, the urn was buried there and finally transferred to the Munich forest cemetery on the 14th anniversary of her death in 1930. It was her own wish to be buried in the Old Bonn Cemetery near Clara Schumann and Beethoven's mother ; this happened in 1951.

literature

  • Marcelli Janecki : Handbook of the Prussian Nobility. Volume 1, p. 37.
  • Always busy. History and tasks of the Max Reger Institute , ed. from the Max Reger Institute / Elsa Reger Foundation, Stuttgart, Carus 2007, especially chap. "Two foundations and no legacy" by Susanne Popp , pp. 17–32
  • Susanne Popp : Max Reger - work instead of life. Biography . Wiesbaden, Breitkopf & Härtel , 2015

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Joseph Johann Max Reger , Deutschland Heiraten, 1558–1929, FamilySearch , accessed March 10, 2019
  2. ↑ a b Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures. Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 386.
  3. ↑ Elsa Reger: My life with and for Max Reger, memories . Leipzig, Koehler & Amelang, 1930
  4. ↑ Else von Hase-Koehler (ed.): Max Reger, letters from a German master - a picture of life . Leipzig, Koehler & Amelang, 1928
personal data
SURNAME Reger, Elsa
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bagenski, Elsa von; Bercken, Elsa von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Max Reger's wife and estate manager
DATE OF BIRTH October 25, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Kolberg
DATE OF DEATH May 3, 1951
Place of death Bonn