Ignaz Moscheles: Piano Concerto No. 7 in C minor, Op. 93 'Concert Pathétique'

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Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870)

Piano Concerto No. 7 in C minor, Op. 93 'Concert Pathétique'

I. Allegro maestoso e moderato 0:00
II. Allegro agitato - Andante espressivo - Allegro agitato, tempo I - Andante tempo I - attacca - 13:41
III. Allegro con brio 18:12


Sinfonia da Camera
Ian Hobson, piano/conductor

Dedicated to his friend, Giacomo Meyerbeer

(Isaac) Ignaz Moscheles (1794–1870) was a Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso, whose career after his early years was based initially in London, and later at Leipzig, where he joined his friend and sometime pupil Felix Mendelssohn as Professor of Piano at the Conservatoire. Moscheles was born in Prague on May 23, 1794, to an affluent German-speaking Jewish merchant family. His first name was originally Isaac. His father played the guitar and was keen for one of his children to become a musician. Initially his hopes fixed on Ignaz's sister, but when she demurred, her piano lessons were transferred to her brother. Ignaz developed an early passion for the (then revolutionary) piano music of Beethoven, which the Mozartean Bedřich Diviš Weber, his teacher at the Prague Conservatory, attempted to curb, urging him to focus on Bach, Mozart and Muzio Clementi. After his father’s early death, Moscheles settled in 1808 in Vienna. His abilities were such that he was able to study in the city under Albrechtsberger for counterpoint and theory and 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 Meyerbeer (at that time still a piano virtuoso, not yet a composer) and their extemporized piano-duets were highly acclaimed. Moscheles was also familiar with Hummel and Kalkbrenner. 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. Moscheles's good relations with Beethoven were to prove important to both at the end of Beethoven's life. After his Viennese period there followed for Moscheles a sensational series of European concert tours—it was after hearing Moscheles play at Carlsbad that the boy Robert Schumann was fired to become a piano virtuoso himself. But Moscheles found an especially warm welcome in London, where in 1822 he was awarded an honorary membership of the London Academy of Music, and he had no hesitation in settling there after his marriage. Moscheles visited most of the great capitals of Europe, making his first appearance in London in 1822, and there securing the friendship of Muzio Clementi and Johann Baptist Cramer. Moscheles was also a student of Muzio Clementi. In March 1823 Moscheles paid a long visit to Bath in Somerset and started work on his Piano Concerto No. 4 (Op.64). The concerto had its first performance, in London, shortly afterwards, on 16 June. 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. Although throughout this period Moscheles continued to write music and travel on concert tours, he depended heavily on teaching for income, and this placed him under considerable stress. When therefore Mendelssohn established a Conservatory at Leipzig in 1843 he was keen to attract his friend Moscheles there as a colleague, promising him ample time in his schedules for concertising and music-making. After several years, Moscheles gladly accepted the position in 1846. He became a longstanding and prominent member of the Conservatory faculty, teaching piano there for several decades. Moscheles died in Leipzig on 10 March 1870, nine days after attending his last rehearsal with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.