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Isaac Ignaz Moscheles (; 23 May 1794Kroll (2014), p. 4.10 March 1870) was a piano virtuoso and composer. He was based initially in London and later at Leipzig, where he joined his friend and sometime pupil Felix Mendelssohn as professor of piano in the Conservatory.
After his father's early death, Moscheles settled in Vienna in 1808. His abilities were such that he was able to study in the city under Albrechtsberger for counterpoint and theory and Antonio Salieri for composition. At this time he changed his first name from "Isaac" to "Ignaz". He was one of the leading virtuosi resident in Vienna during the 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna, and it was at this time that he wrote his enormously popular virtuosic Alexander Variations, Op. 32 for piano and orchestra, which he later played throughout Europe. Here, too, he became a close friend of Giacomo Meyerbeer, at that time still a piano virtuoso, not yet a composer; their extemporized piano-duets were highly acclaimed.Conway (2011), pp. 127–30. Moscheles was also familiar with Hummel and Kalkbrenner. Among the virtuosi of the 1820s, Hummel, Kalkbrenner, Cramer, Henri Herz and Weber were his most famous rivals.Kroll (2014), pp. 6–20.
While in Vienna, Moscheles was able to meet his idol Beethoven, who was so impressed with the young man's abilities that he entrusted him with the preparation of the piano score of his opera Fidelio, commissioned by his publisher Artaria. At the end of his manuscript, before presenting it to Beethoven, Moscheles wrote the words Fine mit gottes Hülfe ("Finished with God's help"). Beethoven approved Moscheles's version, but appended the words O Mensch, hilf dir selber ("O Man, help thyself!").Conway (2011), p. 129. Moscheles's good relations with Beethoven were to prove important to both at the end of Beethoven's life.Kroll (2014), pp. 8–9; Conway (2011), p. 129.
Their children, two sons and three daughters, were all baptised at birth and he and his wife were baptised in 1832.Kroll (2014); for a discussion of Moscheles' self-identification, see Chapter 8, "The Jewish Musician." They were parents to the painters Felix Moscheles (1833–1917), their second son, and Serena Anna Moscheles (1830–1902), their second daughter and wife of Georg Rosen.Cf. . Rosen was an orientalist like his brother of Friedrich August Rosen, another friend of Mendelssohn, like Moscheles. His granddaughter Jelka Rosen, also a painter, married the composer Frederick Delius. Another granddaughter, Marie-Thérèse, married Henry Fielding Dickens, the son of author Charles Dickens. Moscheles travelled extensively in Europe as a pianist and conductor, eventually settling in London (1825–1846) where his address was 3, Chester Place, near Regent's Park. He became co-director of the Royal Philharmonic Society in 1832. He never disavowed his Jewish origins and frequently took his family to visit his relatives in Prague, all of whom had retained their Jewish allegiances.Conway (2011), p. 106.
Through his Dickens descendants, he is a great-grandfather of Admiral Gerald Charles Dickens and a great-great-great-great-grandfather of actor Harry Lloyd. Through his Roche descendants, he is great-great-grandfather to the musicologist Jerome Roche, and great-great-great-grandfather to historian Helen Roche and electronic musician Mike Paradinas.
In March 1823, Moscheles paid a long visit to Bath in Somerset and started work on his Piano Concerto No. 4 (Op. 64). On an excursion to Bristol, Coleridge says that, "Moscheles delights in the view of the Bristol Channel and adds, "What can be finer than the first view of the Welsh mountains from Clifton? an enchanting panorama? The very place to write an adagio; the blue mountains form such a grand background to this bright channel." The piano concerto had its first performance, in London, shortly afterwards, on 16 June.Moscheles, C. (tr. A. D. Coleridge), vol. 1, pp. 71–2.
Before that, however, in 1824, he had accepted an invitation to visit Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy in Berlin to give some lessons to his children Felix and Fanny. His comments on meeting them were: "This is a family the like of which I have never known. Felix, a boy of fifteen is a phenomenon. What are all prodigies compared with him? ... He is already a mature artist. His elder sister Fanny is also extraordinarily gifted." Shortly afterwards he wrote: "This afternoon ... I gave Felix Mendelssohn his first lesson, without losing sight for a moment of the fact that I was sitting next to a master, not a pupil."C. Moscheles (1874), I, p. 98.
Thus began a relationship of extraordinary intensity which lasted throughout and beyond Mendelssohn's life (he died in 1847). Moscheles was instrumental in bringing Felix to London for the first time in 1829 – Abraham entrusted Felix to his care for this visit. Moscheles had carefully prepared for it. In London, apart from becoming a regular and successful performer as well as a musical adviser for the soirées of the Rothschilds, he had become an invaluable aid for Sir George Smart and the Philharmonic Society, advising them of the talents of European musicians he encountered on his own concert-tours. When Smart himself toured Europe in 1825 looking for new music and musicians for the Society, Moscheles furnished Smart with a list of contacts and letters of introduction, including both Beethoven and Mendelssohn. In Prague, Moscheles's brother acted as Smart's guide. Smart visited the Mendelssohns in Berlin and was impressed with both Felix and Fanny. This eventually led to Mendelssohn's invitation to conduct at the Society on his 1829 visit.Conway (2011), pp. 106–7.
In 1827, Moscheles acted as intermediary between the Philharmonic Society and the dying Beethoven. He helped persuade the Society to send Beethoven desperately needed funds during the composer's illness. In return, Beethoven offered to write for the Society his (uncompleted) Tenth Symphony.Conway (2011), p. 108.
Mendelssohn's great success in England from 1829 until the end of his life also reflected well on his friend. Although Moscheles's music was now being looked on as a little old-fashioned, he was heavily in demand as a music teacher and included amongst his pupils many children of the rich and aristocratic classes. He was also appointed "Pianist to Prince Albert", a sinecure, which nevertheless confirmed his status. Child prodigy pianist Elizabeth Jonas, a student of Moscheles, played several command performances at Windsor Castle.
Moscheles never ceased to promote the music of Beethoven and gave many recitals of his music: in 1832 he conducted the London premiere of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, and he translated A.F. Schindler's biography of Beethoven into English. He was an early exponent of the piano recital – the concert of music for piano alone, the innovation of which is disputed between Franz Liszt and Moscheles. Moscheles gave the first fully public performance of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata in London on 14 March 1839, three years after Liszt had performed it for an invited audience in Paris.
Moscheles notably reintroduced the harpsichord as a solo recital instrument. He also often performed in concert with Mendelssohn in London (and elsewhere) – one great favourite of both musicians were Bach's concerti for multiple keyboard instruments. On these occasions Mendelssohn and Moscheles were renowned for vying with each other in impromptu . Performances of the three-harpsichord concerto were given, on one occasion with Thalberg at the third keyboard, on another with Clara Schumann. Moscheles often appeared as a conductor, especially of Beethoven.Conway (2011), pp. 106–9.
The Conservatory became in effect a shrine to Mendelssohn's musical legacy. The critic and pianist Edward Dannreuther, who studied under Moscheles at Leipzig between 1859 and 1863, later wrote:
... it was whispered that the two old Grands in the pianoforte-room of the Conservatorium were wont to rehearse Mendelssohn's D minor Concerto all alone by themselves, from 12.30 on Sunday night until cock-crow! Force of habit, probably.Anon. (1898), p. 647.
It thus fell to Moscheles to lead the counter-attack on Richard Wagner after the latter's snide attack on Mendelssohn (and Meyerbeer) in his notorious article Das Judenthum in der Musik ("Jewry in Music"), which he did by requesting the resignation from the Conservatory's board of Wagner's editor, Brendel.Conway (2011), p. 194. Like Mendelssohn, Moscheles believed that music had reached its Golden Age during the period Bach to Beethoven, and was suspicious of (although not necessarily antagonistic towards) new directions such as those shown by Wagner, Liszt and Berlioz. Nevertheless, his personal relations with all of these (except perhaps Wagner) remained cordial. The Mendelssohn legacy in Britain meant that the Leipzig Conservatory had a high reputation amongst English musicians and amongst those who studied there during Moscheles's time were Arthur Sullivan and Charles Villiers Stanford.Kroll (2014), pp. 174–5.
Moscheles died in Leipzig on 10 March 1870, nine days after attending his last rehearsal with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.
More recently, with the modest but noticeable revival of interest in compositions by this composer and those of his colleagues, more of Moscheles's works are being made accessible on compact disc, especially by small and independent record labels. All the completed piano concerti and fantasias for piano and orchestra are available on the Hyperion Records label, played by Howard Shelley, who also conducted the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra; they have also issued the complete piano studies, played by Piers Lane. Ian Hobson has also recorded the first six and included a pair of variations not recorded by Shelley.
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