Romantic Discoveries Recordings

Theodor Kirchner (1823-1903)
Old Memories
John Kersey, piano
RDR CD38

Total time: 69 mins 53 secs

Alte Erinnerungen (Old Memories), op 74:
1) Poco lento, espressivo (2’20”) 2) Allegretto (3’03”) 3) Andantino espressivo (poco lento) (1’46”) 4) Moderato (3’21”) 5) Andantino (2’43”) 6) Con espressione (1’46”) 7) Cantabile (3’07”) 8) Allegretto (1’20”) 9) Andantino (2’30”) 10) Vivace scherzando (00’38”) 11) Comodo (2’21”) 12) Poco lento (2’30”).

13) Scherzo no. 2, op 54 (5’27”).

“Aus der Jugendzeit” (From Childhood), op 88:
14) Allegro moderato (00’53”) 15) Poco Allegro (1’24”) 16) Moderato (1’41”) 17) Risoluto (1’18”) 18) Vivace scherzando (00’59”) 19) Poco Allegro (1’02”) 20) Lento (1’17”) 21) Vivace (1’06”) 22) Poco lento (1’14”) 23) Allegretto (1’12”).

Federzeichnungen (Pen and Ink Sketches), op 47:
24) Moderato (2’45”) 25) Allegro ma non troppo (3’00”) 26) Moderato (3’04”) 27) Poco lento (2’14”) 28) Allegro vivace (1’58”) 29) Andantino (3’06”) 30) Moderato, cantabile (1’39”) 31) Poco lento (2’06”) 32) Intermezzo (Allegretto con moto) (1’03”) 33) Zum Schluss (Poco lento) (1’36”)

Fürchtegott Theodor Kirchner, a pupil of Mendelssohn at the newly-founded Leipzig Conservatoire, composed over 1,000 original works for piano, most of which are sets of miniatures. Kirchner expert Dr. Klaus Tischendorf, who has kindly provided the scores and 1890 cover photograph for these recordings, has described Kirchner as “the piano miniaturist of the Romantic era”.

Kirchner was recommended by Mendelssohn for the post of organist of Winterthur in Switzerland in 1843, and remained there for the next twenty years. The position gave him the opportunity to travel throughout Germany, and there he came into contact with Brahms and the Schumanns (he had first met Robert Schumann aged fourteen), who recognised in him an arch-Romantic and kindred spirit. He appears to have had a brief affair with Clara Schumann in the 1860s.

In 1862, Kirchner became director of the subscription concerts in Zurich, but remained there for only three years before returning to freelance life. He was appointed court pianist at Meiningen in 1872 and became director of the conservatoire in Würzburg the following year. Again, he did not stay long, and in 1876 moved to Leipzig for seven years, before going on to Dresden, where he taught score-reading. The year 1890 was a climactic one for him, for he abandoned his wife and family and went to live in Hamburg, where he was looked after by a former pupil. Four years later he suffered the first of two strokes that left himparalysed, and began to go blind.

“In his character there is no stability” wrote Clara Schumann. Kirchner’s career suffered because of his addiction to gambling and an extravagant lifestyle that was beyond his means, and his musical friends had periodically to bail him out from financial ruin. In 1884 a group including Brahms, Grieg, Gade and von Bülow raised thirty thousand marks to help him pay off his gambling debts.

Kirchner’s op 74, dating from 1885, is one of his finest mature sets of pieces, and inhabits his favourite mood of reminiscent Innigkeit. Most of the pieces are quiet, reflective and concentrate on the expression of subtle and restrained emotion. By contrast, Kirchner the virtuoso appears in the Second Scherzo (1881), whose trio was described in a contemporary review as “one of the most beautiful movements that have ever come from Kirchner’s pen. The beauty of sound of this simple cantilena, which at times flowers with a finely Chopin-like arabesque, cannot be put into words.” Kirchner’s op 88 (1889) follows Schumann’s op 15 example in that it is a set of pieces describing childhood in retrospect, rather than intended for children to perform. The Federzeichnungen (1880) are more ambitious, calling upon a richly expressive palette to create interior landscapes of lasting melodic and harmonic quality.