Unearthing a moving, musical gem

The composer of this recently unearthed gem is Leo Ornstein, a fascinating if shadowy figure who quickly became a star in new-music circles at the beginning of the 20th century, then retreated into obscurity almost as swiftly. When he died, at the age of 108, he was probably the only composer to have lived in three centuries. He also left behind a huge body of compositions, many of uncertain date and provenance. Among these is his Third Sonata for violin and piano, which Kirchoff and violinist Gabriel Boyers will perform publicly for the first time next Thursday at the Goethe-Institut Boston.

Though Ornstein’s name has disappeared from most cursory surveys of 20th-century music, he was for a time “one of the biggest figures in American classical music,’’ says Kirchoff, speaking by phone. Born in Russia, Ornstein immigrated to America in 1907 and established himself as a talented pianist and forceful advocate for new music, giving the American premieres of works by Bartok, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Ravel, among others.

During the 1910s he also began to compose. Again, he was quick to develop a reputation — this time as the creator of some of the strangest and most uncompromising music anyone had heard. He pioneered the use of tone clusters — thick, dissonant chords made up of consecutive notes of a scale. Until recently, these were thought to have been developed by composers Henry Cowell and Charles Ives, later in the century.

“His early compositions were these wildly avant-garde pieces,’’ says Kirchoff. “They had clusters all over the place, there were crazy dissonances. And critics just had no idea how to even respond — it was just so beyond anything anyone had even conceived of.’’

These were the works that Kirchoff — who earned a master’s degree from New England Conservatory and is a veteran of Stephen Drury’s Callithumpian Consort, where he played with Boyers — says made him a devotee of the composer’s music. Yet as swiftly as Ornstein had advanced to the front of the avant-garde, he left it. He quit giving public performances in the 1930s, opting to teach and compose. His language morphed into something more tonal and traditional, angering his former modernist allies.

What amazes Kirchoff is less the stylistic distance Ornstein traveled than the diversity his works would exhibit for the rest of his lengthy career. “I’ve honestly never seen a more eclectic composer,’’ he says. “One piece will be extremely conservative, and then the very next day he’d write something daring, and the next day he’d write something that sounds kind of impressionist. It bounced back and forth.’’

Ornstein’s retreat was not just from modernism but from the world itself. During the 1970s he was discovered living in total obscurity in a trailer park in Texas. He composed throughout the decades but showed no interest in promoting his music, thinking, in Kirchoff’s words, that “they’ll just play it eventually.’’ Since his death, in 2002, his legacy has been taken up by his son Severo, who maintains a wonderfully robust website with a discography, scores, and audio recordings (www.poonhill.com).

It was Severo who learned of Kirchoff’s interest in the composer and entrusted him with the Third Violin Sonata. There’s no indication of when it was composed — Kirchoff thinks sometime in the 1920s — or whether its single movement represents a completed work (Severo thinks no; Kirchoff and Boyers, yes).

What is clear is that the piece is substantially less radical than the composer’s early works. “There is a sort of late-romantic flair to it,’’ the pianist says, comparing its arpeggiated piano figures to Rachmaninoff and pointing to “these gorgeous melodies’’ in the violin. Kirchoff also hears flavors of Gypsy and klezmer music. Far from settling into a clearly defined category, the Third Violin Sonata may offer a glimpse into the array of styles Ornstein absorbed throughout his life.

Figuring out what to surround the premiere work with on Thursday’s program was, Kirchoff says, “more difficult than you would think.’’ Ultimately he and Boyers settled on Ornstein’s angular First Violin Sonata and music by Bach and Schubert. “The Ornstein was meaty and full, so we wanted something pre-romantic,’’ he explains, “but something that could still fit. We felt that both the Bach and Schubert could be deeply moving and touching works — much like the Ornstein, but touching different parts of the mind and soul.’’

David Weininger can be reached at globeclassicalnotes@gmail.com