THEODOR KIRCHNER (1823-1903): Piano Quartet in C Minor, Op. 84, 6 Caprices for Piano, Op. 27, Nur Tropfen for String Quartet.

Description: How about a 32-page booklet with 18 pages on the architect who built and the family who owned (the Bayer pharmaceutical people) the Villa Koerner in Chemnitz and 12 pages on the music here recorded, and all of it in German only? But lots of color pictures of the house and its striking furnishings. Well, that won't bother collectors of German Romanticism, will it? The Caprices (1877) are echt-Brahmsian in their burnished, glowing romantic language; the 1886 piano quartet, although chronologically later, often harkens back to the lighter, earlier Brahms or to Schumann while the little string quartet "drops" (as in "of liquid") are seven little pieces (perhaps technical studies?) of 30 seconds to 2 minutes - a genre not often encountered for string quartet. Peter Rösel (piano), Robert Schumann Quartet.