When Kirchner began his professorship at Harvard in the fall of 1961, he had two projects under commission: an opera and a piano concerto. After years of searching for a stimulating and suitable libretto, in 1960, while still at Mills College, Kirchner had read Saul Bellow’s latest novel, Henderson the Rain King (1959), and had settled on it as the literary source for his opera. Bellow was enthusiastic about writing the libretto, but he informed Kirchner that, before working on it, he would first have to finish his current novel in progress, Herzog. Therefore, at Harvard, Kirchner initially focused his energy on the piano concerto, which had been commissioned by the Ford Foundation for Leon Fleisher in 1959 and was already behind schedule.

The nature of this commission was rather unusual. In 1958 the Ford Foundation solicited nominations for outstanding and successful performing artists who were in the middle stages of their careers, that is, neither young artists nor those who were already world famous. The foundation cast a wide net, and 349 instrumentalists and singers were nominated. An independent jury selected ten winners, who each received a five-thousand-dollar grant and the privilege of selecting a composer from whom the foundation would commission a concerto or other large work with orchestra. Meanwhile, ten American orchestras were chosen to premiere the new works, each orchestra agreeing to perform three of the ten new compositions. Two of the winning instrumentalists, pianists Leon Fleisher and Seymour Lipkin, indicated that they wanted Kirchner to compose for them. As an admirer of both pianists, Kirchner was given a difficult choice; he decided on Fleisher.

Although the first performance of Kirchner’s new work, his Piano Concerto No. 2, was scheduled for 1961 with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, it was not completed until two years later. Milton Katims, music director of the Seattle Symphony, invited Kirchner to conduct the premiere, which took place on October 28, 1963. It was a tremendous pleasure for Kirchner to work with Fleisher again, and after their performance of the demanding concerto, the Seattle critics commented on its romantic aesthetic, close integration of solo and orchestral forces, and rich scoring.