The German pianist Matthias Kirschnereit has cultivated a repertoire built on strong, rather self-effacing performances in the mainstream of the German and Austrian classics. Kirschnereit was born in 1962 in Dorsten, West Germany, but from age nine he grew up in Namibia in southern Africa, a country with a sizable German population. Fascinated by the idea of a piano career, he asked permission from his family to return to Germany alone. Finally, when he was 14, permission was granted, but Kirschnereit had taken few formal lessons up to that time, and when he enrolled at the Ho...