Presents

Theodor Kirchner

Seven Character Pieces (Bunte Blätter) for Piano Trio

Kirchner (1823-1903) 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.

He 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.

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 Seven Character Pieces were originally published in 1888 as his Op.83, a set of 12 pieces he titled "Bunte Blätter" (brightly colored leaves in German). Our edition is based on the original, but we have selected what we consider to be the best of the set and have arranged them in an appealing order for concert performance, although, because none of the pieces are longer than 4 minutes, any of them would surely make an excellent encore. Both amateurs and professionals alike will find these pieces much to their taste.

Parts: $24.95