1954 Naumburg Recording Award

Leon Kirchner's Piano Concerto no. 1 was composed in 1953; commissioned by the Koussevitsky Foundation.

A jury of notable artists awarded the work a Naumburg Recording Award. The prize of this award was a recording of the work by Columbia Records.

That recording was made one day after the world premiere in February of 1956, at a Carnegie Hall concert of the Philharmonic Symphony, with Mitropoulos on the podium and Kirchner at the piano.

The work was reviewed by Jay S. Harrison of the New York Herald Tribune who found it "harsh and biting and vigorously aggressive in its dissonant drive." He went on to say, "the piece does communicate a certain craggy, granitic grandeur. It is a totally honest work."

Source: Contemporary World Musicians by Clifford Thompson (2020)

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