Presents
Theodor Kirchner
Serenade for Piano Trio
Kirchner
(1823-1903) was born in the town of Neukirchen near Chemnitz in the German
province of Saxony. He showed a prodigious musical talent at an early age,
however, his father was reluctant to let him study music. It was only after
hearing both Schumann and Mendelssohn highly praise his son’s talent that he
permitted Theodor to attend the Leipzig Conservatory, where he studied with
Mendelssohn, among others. It was upon Mendelssohn’s recommendation that
Kirchner in 1843 obtained his first position as organist of the main church in
Winterthur in Switzerland. He was a friend of both Robert and Clara Schumann as
well as Brahms.
Kirchner’s compositional talent was widely respected and held in the highest regard by Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Wagner and many others. But Kirchner, found himself unable to write large scale works. Rather, he excelled at writing miniatures. He would often write several at a time and then publish them together, each with a different mood and feel and each perfect in its own way. He was widely considered to be the undisputed master of the character piece, a short kind of free form work. Kirchner literally wrote hundreds of such pieces which can rightly be considered little gems, little masterpieces.
Though primarily known, during his lifetime, as an organist, pianist and teacher, he wrote more than 1,000 works, most are short and for the piano, although he did write a small amount of very appealing chamber music, primarily for piano trio.
The slow, highly lyrical Serenade in E Major is one such work. This short, very lovely one movement work without opus number, was composed in 1879. It is, like so many of his others, gorgeous and exquisite. It would make a perfect encore. (Our sound-bite presents a little less than half of this work)
Parts: $12.95
