The Max Reger Institute/Elsa Reger Foundation (MRI) was founded on 25 October 1947 by Elsa Reger, the composer's widow, in the knowledge that Max Reger had fallen into undeserved oblivion thirty years after his death on 11 May 1916.
For almost 50 years, the foundation was based in Bonn, where Elsa Reger - with no biographical connection to her husband - had found her last residence after the Second World War. At the beginning of 1996, the foundation moved to Karlsruhe, where it found its final home in October 1998 in the spacious premises of the Alte Karlsburg in Durlach.
From humble beginnings, the MRI has developed over the past decades with a passion for Reger's music, creativity and experimentation into a centre for international Reger research, a meeting place for musicologists and artists and a location for innovative cultural mediation. In addition, it has been possible to build up what is now probably the world's largest Reger collection, not least thanks to a great deal of commitment (including voluntary work): Almost 200 autograph scores (as of March 2015), countless original letters and documents from Reger and his circle, works of art and devotional objects as well as an extensive archive of printed music and sound recordings comprehensively document the life, work and compositions of the composer and invite all those interested in Reger's music to spend time researching them. At the beginning of 1999, the BrüderBuschArchive, formerly located in Hilchenbach-Dahlbruch near Siegen, was handed over to the MRI for academic analysis and donated to the MRI in 2003.
