Max Reger's Fantasia and fugue for organ in D minor, Op. 135b, was written in 1916, the last year of his life. Though D minor is the nominal key signature, the work is built around the three-note cell D-C sharp-G flat, thus introducing an accidental not in the original key signature. Indeed, chromatic notes insert themselves at every turn in this music, suggesting that perhaps Reger would have gone on to greater experiments had he lived past the age of 43. Weird, slithery cascades of chromatics open the first movement before whirling unexpectedly into a blazing, solid major chord. This sequence turns out to be a microcosm of the movement; mysterious, quiet music - often in one or two parts, in constrast to the fiendishly complex music Reger composed in his youth - holds the stage for a while, then yields to dramatic organ thundering. Yet the thundering itself often yields to the quieter music without much struggle; the whole fantasia refuses to provide anything but momentary stability until the final Picardy third. The fugue which follows promises more of the same; its subject, written in "notes egales," uses eleven of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale at a deliberate tempo, and the counterpoint seems built for inward concentration. Eventually, though, a theme marked "scherzo" breaks the mood with its gigue-like turns and snappier tempo; the theme undergoes development quite reminiscent of the Baroque until the music begins slowing down and growing much louder, like a fast machine grinding to a halt. The wrench in the works is the first fugue theme, which eventually warps the scherzo theme to its structure in a massive superimposition all the more thrilling after the simultaneous deceleration and crescendo.

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