Reger’s father was a schoolteacher who was an amateur musician. When he was a boy Max helped his father to rebuild an organ that was going to be thrown away. This was the instrument on which he learned to play. It was some time before he started proper lessons, but by the time he was a teenager he was playing the organ for church services. When he was 15 he went to Bayreuth to hear Wagner’s operas. This was the moment when Reger decided he wanted to become a musician.