LEON KIRCHNER: IN HONOR OF HIS 80TH BIRTHDAY
CD-1045(2)

Add to Shopping Cart

Paul Griffiths wrote in a recent issue of the New York Times:  "Mr. Kirchner's music has always been outgoing, strong, challenging, glorious to hear.  He is a big man, and he makes big music...Mr. Kirchner was born in Brooklyn but brought up in Los Angeles, where he studied with Ernest Bloch and, most decisively, Arnold Schoenberg.   From Schoenberg he seems to have learned two essential lessons.  One was to accept the rough with the smooth: not to be afraid of irregular tunes and awkward, dissonant harmonies; not to run away from the grandeur of difficulty.  The other was to recognize the primacy of what you have to say, from which the way to say it will emerge...'An artist must create a personal cosmos, a verdant world in continuity with tradition,' he wrote in the mid-1950's.  'It is in this way that idea, powered by conviction and necessity, will create its own style and the singular, momentous structure capable of realizing its intent.'...If this is almost a definition of latter-day Romanticism, then Mr. Kirchner was content to be a latter-day Romantic:  a composer who wished to persuade and express, as Brahms had persuaded and expressed, but who, in order to do so, had to find an individual voice, not make do with Brahms's or Prokofiev's or anyone else's.  In the 50's, this view placed him at odds with the abstract and positivist direction in which many of his colleagues were going."

This collection brings together the long unavailable Columbia and Epic LPs of a quarter century of Kirchner works, featuring the composer as pianist in a number of them.

CD-1045(2) LEON KIRCHNER: IN HONOR OF HIS 80TH BIRTHDAY.  Works composed from 1948 to 1973:  The Columbia and Epic recordings.CD No.1, 76:56:   Piano Sonata (1948) with Leon Fleisher (from Epic BC 1262), String Quartet No. 1 (1949) with American Art Quartet (from Columbia ML4843), Sonata Concertante for violin and piano (1952) with Eudice Shapiro and Leon Kirchner (from Epic LC 3306), Piano Concerto No. 1 (1953) (1st 2 of 3 movements), Leon Kirchner with NYPSO and Dimitri Mitropoulos (from Columbia ML 5185).  CD No. 2, 78:25:Piano Concerto No. 1 (cont.), Trio for piano, violin and cello (1954) with Leon Kirchner, Nathan Rubin & George Neikrug (from Epic LC 3306), String Quartet No. 2 (1958), Lenox String Quartet (from Columbia M32740), String Quartet No. 3 from Strings and Electronic Tape (1966), with Beaux Arts Quartet (from Columbia MS 7284), Lilly, for Soprano and Chamber Orchestra (1973), with Diana Hoagland, Soprano, and Columbia Chamber Soloists (from Columbia M 32740).  (ADD) UPC # 0-17685-10452-7

Pno Son: I. Lento/Doppio Movt
Pno Son: II. Adagio
Pno Son: III. Allegro Risoluto
Str Qt No.1: I. Allegro Ma Non Troppo
Str Qt No.1: II. Adagio
Pno Con No.1: III. Rondo
Trio: I.
Trio: II. Largo
Str Qt No.2: I. Moderato
Str Qt No.2: II. Adagio

© 2006 Music & Arts Programs of America. All rights reserved.