Theodor Kirchner

Romanzen op. 22

The Romances op. 22 were composed during Kirchner's time in Würzburg, where he directed the local music school from 1873 to 1875. This period was very fruitful for the compositional work of the then fifty-year-old Kirchner. In addition to eight other piano works, he also composed the String Quartet op. 20 in Würzburg, one of his few works in larger forms. In his Romances for Piano op. 22, Theodor Kirchner drew on Robert Schumann's Romances op. 28 (1839), which combine the poetic with the passionate. The common thread is the narrative element. They are "songs without words", sometimes dreamy and spun, sometimes stirring and adventurous. (Jürg Löffler)