Biography
Though regarded as a German composer, Moscheles was born in Czechoslovakia, where his piano skills emerged at a strikingly early age. Between 1804 and 1808 Weber served as his teacher, requiring focused study of Bach and Clementi; the discovery of Beethoven’s “Pathetique,” however, immediately seized his imagination. In 1808 he moved to Vienna to remain near Beethoven, taking composition lessons with Salieri and counterpoint lessons with Albrechtsberger. By 1814 he had established a reputation as a virtuoso, earning a commission to prepare a piano transcription of Beethoven’s “Fidelio.”
Extensive concert tours soon took him through Germany, Paris, and London, where the young Schumann figured among his listeners and where acquaintances and comparisons with Clementi and Cramer quickly arose. Moscheles met the fifteen-year-old Mendelssohn and offered him discreet guidance. Settling in London in 1825, he joined the faculty of the RAM as a piano instructor whose pupils included Thalberg. While based there he enriched the city’s musical life by performing at private gatherings, reviving interest in Baroque repertoire through harpsichord performances of Bach and Scarlatti, continuing to compose, and directing the first London performances of Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony” and “Missa Solemnis.”
In 1846 he accepted the post of piano professor at the Leipzig Conservatory and remained in that role for the rest of his life. The largest share of his output consisted of piano arrangements encompassing a wide range of salon genres. His technical principles continue to inform the piano studies still in use today. Mendelssohn regarded the sonatas as Moscheles’s strongest works, and the composer’s style maintained a deliberate equilibrium between classical structure and romantic expressive range.
Extensive concert tours soon took him through Germany, Paris, and London, where the young Schumann figured among his listeners and where acquaintances and comparisons with Clementi and Cramer quickly arose. Moscheles met the fifteen-year-old Mendelssohn and offered him discreet guidance. Settling in London in 1825, he joined the faculty of the RAM as a piano instructor whose pupils included Thalberg. While based there he enriched the city’s musical life by performing at private gatherings, reviving interest in Baroque repertoire through harpsichord performances of Bach and Scarlatti, continuing to compose, and directing the first London performances of Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony” and “Missa Solemnis.”
In 1846 he accepted the post of piano professor at the Leipzig Conservatory and remained in that role for the rest of his life. The largest share of his output consisted of piano arrangements encompassing a wide range of salon genres. His technical principles continue to inform the piano studies still in use today. Mendelssohn regarded the sonatas as Moscheles’s strongest works, and the composer’s style maintained a deliberate equilibrium between classical structure and romantic expressive range.