Theodor Kirchner
Selected Piano Works
Theodor Kirchner was a successful pianist, pedagogue and composer in Leipzig, Dresden, Zurich, Winterthur and Hamburg. His very extensive output includes works for piano, organ, chamber music and choir. To the very end, Kirchner remained a master of the piano miniature in the tradition of Mendelssohn and Schumann, with characteristic work-titles such as “Album leaf” (op. 7), “Night pictures” (op. 25) and “In quiet hours” (op. 56). His waltzes, polonaises and mazurkas are also worth playing and hearing. This anthology, in customary Urtext quality with 34 piano pieces from all phases of Kirchner’s life, is an outstanding starting point for mastering the works of this German romantic.
About the Composer
Theodor Kirchner
A German composer, pianist, and organist of the Romantic period. He composed over 1,000 works for piano; his lyrical character pieces are distinguished by their intimacy, unusual modulations, and polyphony. During his lifetime he counted Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Schumann among his supporters, and Clara Schumann included his pieces in her concert repertoire. Aside from piano literature, he wrote songs, organ works, and chamber music, and made many transcriptions of others’ works.
| 1823 | Born in Neukirchen near Chemnitz on December 10. He receives organ lessons from his father, and lessons in violin and piano from a relative. |
| from 1838 | Receives a four-year education in organ and music theory from Carl Ferdinand Becker, and piano instruction from Julius Knorr. |
| 1842 | From June onward he is a pupil of Johann Gottlob Schneider in Dresden. |
| 1843 | On April 2 he enters the Leipzig Conservatory. |
| 1843–68 | He is organist at the Stadtkirche in Winterthur, and as a pianist is active in the music college there. |
| 1849 | He becomes an honorary member of the Swiss Music Society. |
| from 1862 | In Zurich he works as choral director, chamber musician, and as occasional conductor of the Zurich subscription concerts. |
| 1873–76 | Director of the School of Music in Würzburg. |
| from 1876 | Works as a freelance composer in Leipzig. |
| 1883–90 | At the conservatory in Dresden he teaches ensemble playing and score-reading. |
| from 1890 | He settles in Hamburg. With the assistance of Julius Spengel and Hans von Bülow, concerts of his own works are held. |
| 1903 | Dies in Hamburg on September 18. |
About the Authors
Ernst Herttrich (Editor)
Dr. Ernst Herttrich, born in 1942 in Würzburg, read musicology, history, German and theology at the universities in Würzburg and Cologne. In 1970 he earned his doctorate in Würzburg with a study of the expression of melancholy in the music of Mozart.
From 1970 to 1990 he was an editor at G. Henle Publishers in Munich, after which he was Head of the Beethoven Complete Edition for over 15 years. In 1999 he took over as Head of the Beethoven-Haus Publishers, and from 2001 was made Head of the Beethoven-Archiv, the research centre at the Beethoven-Haus.
He has been a visiting professor at Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo and has undertaken several lecture tours both there and to Kyoto. His research interests include source studies, editorial techniques and music history. Herttrich’s publications include “Beethoven. Liederkreis an die ferne Geliebte” (Bonn 1999) and “Ludwig van Beethoven. Biographie in Bildern” (Bonn, 2000). Herttrich has edited over 100 Urtext editions for G. Henle Publishers.