Theodor Kirchner

Kirchner enjoyed the friendship and admiration of many leading composers of the 19th century yet was unable to maintain a successful career, apparently due to a disordered way of life which included extravagant spending and an addiction to gambling.

Kirchner subsequently was a pupil of Johann Gottlob Schneider [de] in Dresden and attended the Leipzig Conservatory for a short time.

After a spell from 1870 as organist in Zurich, he moved to Meiningen in 1872 to become court pianist; he was made director of the Conservatory in Würzburg the next year, serving until 1875.

Kirchner was esteemed by, amongst others, Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann (who wrote approvingly of him in Neue Zeitschrift für Musik), Brahms, Liszt, Wagner, Dvořák, and Grieg.

As a composer, he was an intense romantic lyricist and a natural miniaturist—he is credited with having written over 1000 piano pieces (mainly collected in cycles) of which many are only a minute or so in duration—a kind of 19th-century forerunner of Webern's Bagatelles.