Max Reger was Catholic, but he nevertheless dearly loved the musical traditions of German Protestants. During the early years of the twentieth century he was a leading figure in the rediscovery of Lutheran chorales as an active and beautiful repertory, and sometimes he plundered these chorales for use in his own organ music. The 65 chorale settings contained in Reger's Op. 67 and 79b are examples of the composer's usual dense, chromatic polyphony, but the Dreissig kleine Choralvorspiele (zu den gebräuchlichsten Chorälen), Op. 135a ("Thirty Little Chorale Preludes [on the most common chorales]") composed in Meiningen during the latter half of September 1914 are quite an exception to this. Reger himself described them as "very easy, childishly simple"—and he was quite right. Thirty of the best-known Lutheran chorale melodies are taken and embedded in unlavish, "plain" organ music, thinly scored by comparison with Reger's organ-music norm, using usually four manual voices and a pedal voice but sometimes no pedal at all or perhaps just three manual voices. It, therefore, comes as no surprise that these settings were quick to find their way into pragmatic-minded church organists' collections the world 'round.

Contained in the volume are such venerable chorales as "Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir," whose every phrase is introduced, in Reger's setting, by the tenor voice alone and then immediately repeated in full harmony (quite irregular for the Op. 135a pieces, one might add); "Ein feste Berg ist unser Gott," in which the chorale cantus firmus is put in the pedals and covered with a delicate filigree; "Von Himmel hoch, da komm ich her," with its alternating soprano and bass cantus firmus phrases; and the renowned "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme," which Reger colors by switching from one manual to the other between phrases.

The Thirty Simple Chorales are dedicated "to my dear friend Hans von Ohlendorff."

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