Rudolf Wagner-Régeny

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Rudolf Wagner-Régeny was born in Szász-Régen, Transylvania [now Reghin], in 1903.

He was actually just Rudolf Wagner at birth, and adopted the name Wagner-Régeny later after his birthplace.

Thanks in the first place to the understanding and concern shown to him by Russian authorities when the Soviet forces reached Mecklenburg, Wagner-Régeny survived the war and his own severe illnesses, spiritual as well as physical. He remained in the Soviet zone and, after the formal division of Germany in 1949, was appointed professor of composition at the Musikhochschule in (East) Berlin.

The search for a new style that was already beginning in the desolate two-part inventions of Hexameron and other piano pieces of the Viennese war years is resumed in the tonally oriented serial music of 1948-60.

His string quartet dates from 1948 and there are three movements:

1. Allegretto
2. Andante sostenuto
3. Allegretto

It was performed by the Michailov quartet:
Max Michailov - Violin 1
Helmut Pietsch - Violin 2
Hugo Fricke - Viola
Werner Haupt - Cello