Carl Christian Eisner was born in 1802 in Pulsnitz, Saxony. After his training in Dresden, he was engaged as a chamber musician at the Imperial Court Orchestra in St. Petersburg, where he remained until 1836. Between 1835 and 1848 Eisner travelled through Europe as a soloist; performances are documented from 1835 onward — among them of his own compositions — in Dresden, Vienna, Pest and Leipzig. After 1836 he was engaged at the Dresden court orchestra. In 1848 Carl Eisner became an extraordinary chamber musician, and in 1854 a full chamber musician and principal hornist of the Royal Orchestra Dresden, a position he held until his retirement in 1871. Carl Eisner was also the first horn teacher at the Dresden Conservatory of Music, founded in 1856.
The Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung praised his warm tone and brilliant technique, noting in particular that he still played the natural horn. According to other concert reviews, however, Eisner had also mastered the new valve horn, transferring the tonal advantages of the natural horn to the technically superior valve horn.
Album for Horn and Piano
First edition
The Album for Horn and Piano brings together several pieces by Carl Eisner that survive only as manuscripts, kept in the SLUB Dresden, and have not previously been published. The individual pieces are:
L'anniversaire (The Birthday) – Eisner himself described the piece as “une pensée” (a thought).
2 études with piano accompaniment
Capriccio pour Cor chromatique et pianoforte sur des thèmes finnois et suédois – here Eisner draws on Swedish and Finnish themes, which he may have encountered during his time in Russia.
“Der Blinde” (The Blind Man) – Eisner's horn arrangement of Carl Keller's work “Der Blinde (eine Fantasie) mit Begl. d. Pianoforte oder d. Guitarre” (from Keller's Gesänge, op. 17) for voice and piano; Keller's work was published by Peters in 1840.
