Carl Christian Eisner was born in 1802 in Pulsnitz, Saxony. After 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 toured Europe as a soloist; performances — including of his own compositions — are documented from 1835 onward in Dresden, Vienna, Pest and Leipzig. After 1836 Eisner was engaged at the court orchestra in Dresden. In 1848 he became an extraordinary chamber musician, and in 1854 a full chamber musician and principal horn of the Royal Dresden Orchestra, a position he held until his retirement in 1871. Eisner was 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. Other concert reviews show, however, that Eisner had also mastered the new valve horn, transferring the tonal qualities of the natural horn to the technically superior valve horn.
Sextet No. 2 for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, Basset Horn and Bassoon
Carl Eisner dedicated his First Sextet to the Dresden Tonkünstlerverein (Society of Musicians); he was certainly a member himself and played the horn part in both sextets. He probably composed his Second Sextet for the same musicians as well, although no dedication survives for this work. Both sextets were likely written between 1854 and 1870; the horn part is explicitly marked "Ventilhorn" (valve horn) or "Corno chromatico".
In compositional terms, these hitherto unpublished sextets deserve to be ranked alongside the quintets of Anton Reicha. The virtuosic part-writing, the excellent handling of each instrument and, not least, the extraordinarily precise and extensive dynamic markings all testify to Carl Eisner's genuine mastery as a composer.
3rd movement. Allegro
The Tonkünstlerverein in Dresden
In 1854 members of the Royal Dresden Orchestra founded the "Tonkünstlerverein Dresden" (Dresden Society of Musicians), with the explicit aim of cultivating not only classical but also contemporary music — music that until then had only occasionally found a voice, for instance between 1848 and 1850 through Clara Schumann and concertmaster Schubert. The final impetus came from the successful performance of works by Robert Volkmann: the goal was "to found a society in which instrumental chamber works of all periods, including the very latest, would be cared for and performed."
The Dresden Tonkünstlerverein pursued this goal with energy and foresight. From the outset, care was taken to include visiting artists in the society's evenings, and the annual reports list many names — some famous, some now forgotten, some still shining brightly today — from countries far and wide. It was also sociologically significant that, as early as 1856, extraordinary ("listening") members were admitted, so that the Tonkünstlerverein increasingly became a musical institution supported by Dresden's citizenry. Its significance far beyond Dresden is reflected in the fact that many leading musicians, at all times, gratefully regarded being made an honorary member as a distinction.
