John Kirkpatrick had two major careers—one as an editor and one as a pianist. Although the two are related, this study will primarily focus on how he helped to shape the music he edited. To do so, however, we have to ricochet back and forth between two ways of thinking about Kirkpatrick, one indicated by a photo of him as a young man, and the other by an anecdote from much later.

Kirkpatrick is on the periphery of his senior class photo at Lawrenceville School, taken in 1922 (fig. 1.1). The eighteen-year-old Kirkpatrick is in the upper left corner of the photo, sitting on a concrete embankment with his friend and fellow pianist Giles Gilbert. His hands are thrust in his pockets, and his brown hair—which was usually held rigidly in place with a healthy dose of pomade—sticks up in a shock. His scuffed shoes dangle off the edge of the overhang, as if, even as the photo is taken, he is preparing to leap to the grass and return to his room. Kirkpatrick's expression is not exactly blank; it suggests rather that he is thinking of something else, and that the momentary interruption of the posed photo shoot is a distraction from another task, one which did not require careful grooming. He squints out at the viewer as if the blinds had suddenly opened on his darkened study. This is a photograph of a man whose business is scrutiny, not being scrutinized.