Moscheles, Ignaz (EN)

Moscheles Ignaz, Isack, *23 May 1794 Prague, †10 March 1870 Leipzig, German pianist, conductor and composer of Czech origin. In 1804–08, he was a student of F.D. Weber, director of the conservatory in Prague. In 1808, he moved to Vienna, where he met Beethoven; he studied his works while taking counterpoint lessons from J.G. Albrechtsberger and composition with A. Salieri. In 1815, he began his career as a virtuoso; he was successful as a performer of his own works (including La marche d’Alexandre Op. 32). By 1825, he performed in Germany, Vienna, Paris, London and Prague. After marrying Charlotte Embden in 1825, he settled in London, where he taught at the Royal Academy of Music (including H. Litolff and S. Thalberg). In 1821–46, he conducted concerts of the Royal Philharmonic Society, and in 1832–41, he was a member of the board of the same society. In 1824, he met Mendelssohn; in 1829, they performed together Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E major for 2 pianos, in 1832 – Mozart’s Concerto in E-flat major for 2 pianos (KV 365), and in 1835, they performed together at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig. In 1832, he conducted the first performance of Missa solemnis in London, and in 1837 and 1838, he conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in D minor. In 1837, he initiated a series of historical concerts, performing works for the harpsichord from 1771, including D. Scarlatti and J.S. Bach, followed by works by Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Clementi, Weber and Beethoven. In 1839, he performed his Grande sonata Op. 47, with Chopin in Paris before King Louis-Philippe I. (Chopin played the second part), which they both repeated many times in Parisian salons. In 1840, he gave concerts with H. Herz, S. Thalberg and Liszt in London. In 1846, he returned to Leipzig, where he became a piano professor at the conservatory.

Moscheles remained faithful to the basics of classical composition, enriching it with elements of the brillant style; his work also shows features typical of romantic music – taking up the genre of instrumental miniature, referring to contemporary lyricism in songs and the idea of programmability. He showed great interest and respect for the music of the past, both as a composer and pianist. His piano works have retained the greatest value, especially the sonatas, appreciated by, among others, by Schumann (Sonate mélancolique in F-sharp minor Op. 49, piano sonatas for 4 hands). In salon compositions – fantasies, rondos and variations – he used a developed brillant technique. The most famous of his concert works is the Piano Concerto No. 3 in G minor Op. 60 inspired by Beethoven’s piano concertos, and from chamber pieces – Septet in D major Op. 88, which is a kind of instrumental concerto. In Méthode des méthodes de piano (1837), he created a synthesis of ways of playing the piano, starting from the position of the hand and ending with improvisations, with which he delighted listeners; from these improvisations comes, among others, 50 Präludien Op. 73. He supported the use of F. Kalkbrenner’s device (so-called guide-mains), he preferred the classic finger-wrist way of playing, although he recognized the economy of movements of the entire hand. He admired Chopin’s way of playing and ordered 3 Nouvelles Études from him, which he used in the Méthode des méthodes; he appreciated the sensitivity and emotionality in Chopin’s works, but he saw in them a “muffled femininity,” “bizarre modulations” (A. Czartkowski, Z. Jeżewska Chopin alive, Warsaw 1959) and a lack of the sense of creating a whole from individual musical thoughts. He was also interested in improvements in piano structures; already in 1821, he predicted a great future for the invention of the double escapement in Erard’s instruments, useful especially in the repetition of sounds, he also played on Viennese and English pianos, among others, in Vienna on a Broadwood instrument borrowed from Beethoven, but he preferred the mechanism of M. Clementi’s pianos.

Literature: Thematisches Verzeichnis im Druck erschienener Compositionen von Ignaz Moscheles, Leipzig 1885, reprint London 1966; Aus Moscheless Leben…, ed. Ch. Moscheles, 2 vol., Leipzig 1873, English ed. Life of Moscheles and Recent Music and Musicians as Described in the Diaries and Correspondence of Ignaz Moscheles, translated by A.D. Coleridge, London 1873, reprint New York 1970 (contains a list of compositions); Briefe von Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy an Ignaz und Charlotte Moscheles, ed. F. Moscheles, Leipzig 1888, English ed. London 1888, reprint New York 1971; F. Moscheles Fragments of an Autobiography, London 1899; J. Roche Ignaz Moscheles 1794–1870, “The Musical Times” CXI, 1970; E. Smidak Ignaz Isack Moscheles. Das Leben des Komponisten und seine Begenungen mit Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Vienna 1988, English ed. Aldershot 1989.