The
‘second-half’ of the book is really a set of five standalone essays that relate
to the main biographical narrative.
The
first looks at Moscheles’ vocation as a concert pianist. It examines the methods
he used to develop his undoubted mastery of his instrument. This explores his
style of ‘a ‘round full tone…perfectly equal touch, abundance of execution,
wonderful readiness, and a style which, adapting itself to every exigency, is
always classical and pure.’ A ‘student evaluation’ of Moscheles by a certain
William Frederick Pecher gives a ‘glowing’ first-hand account of his technique
of piano playing. The chapter considers
Moscheles’ pupils in Leipzig, London and Paris. Specifics of his teaching
methods are given as well as an examination of the pedagogical Studies, op.70
and op.95. This important chapter concludes with a section on the pianos the
composer played, including those manufactured by Clementi, Broadwoood, Érard
and Pleyel.
An
important chapter on Ignaz Moscheles’ relationship with Beethoven begins with a
review of the young man’s work on the piano score of Fidelio as requested and supervised by Beethoven. The facts of his final meeting with Beethoven
in Vienna in 1823 is extracted from his diaries. This chapter discusses his
performance of Beethoven as a conductor and as a pianist. There is considerable
research into his critical role in the establishment of the Ninth Symphony in England.
Finally, notice is made of Moscheles’ edition of selected Beethoven Piano
Sonatas and his translation of Schindler’s biography of the composer.
Kroll
points out that it would be ‘difficult if not impossible to find another
friendship throughout musical history that was so close, both personally and
professionally’ as that between Moscheles and Felix Mendelssohn. Chapter 6
explores this relationship in detail.
It
came as something of a revelation to me to discover that Ignaz Moscheles was a
promoter of the music of Bach and Handel before it became a popular and
fashionable thing to do. When the
composer’s library was auctioned it was found to contain a huge amount of
‘early music’. A list of this music is printed at the end of the chapter. This
included William Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices, madrigals by Weelkes, Wilbye,
Gibbons and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas
and King Arthur. Moscheles played
Bach and Handel and was the first person to perform on the harpsichord in
England since the eighteenth century. Interestingly,
he was opposed to the then popular practice of performing selections of ‘purple
passages’ from Handel’s oratorios and insisted on the complete work. This chapter concludes with a survey of
Moscheles’ contribution to the development of the piano recital.
The
final essay, Chapter 8 scrutinises the ‘challenges of anti-Semitism and assimilation’
that was the lot of many Jewish artists of this period such as Stephen Heller,
Jacques Offenbach and Ferdinand Hiller. What they had in common was that they
were born Jews but were baptised as Christians. In spite of this ‘baptism’
Moscheles never eschewed his Jewish background. The author concludes that it
may never be possible to ‘explain fully… [his] attitude to his Jewish
religion.’ Neither Ignaz nor Charlotte discussed this in their extant diaries.
The
all-important list of works has been generated from the Thematisches Verzeichniss im Druck erschienener Compositionen von Ignaz
Moscheles published in Leipzig in 1858 and
reprinted in London in 1966. The author has provided a number of helpful
annotations and has translated most of the titles and subtitles into English.
There are essential cross-references to the relevant pages in the present book.
Works discovered since the original list was published have been included. However, Kroll has not indicated publishers,
nor specified dates of composition/publication where known. Helpfully, he has
rearranged the catalogue by genre rather than opus number as presented in the
original. Details of key, tempo and title (where appropriate) of individual
pieces within an opus number have typically
not been shown, for example in the Studies. Titles of songs are given, but
often with no reference to the author of the text.
The book presents an
exceptionally useful index. Bearing in mind that Moscheles seemed to know all
the important musical personalities of the first 70 years of the nineteenth
century in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe and that he played and
conducted a huge range of contemporary and historical music during his career,
this is an essential reference tool. It allows us to get our bearings in the
composer’s long and busy life. The entry for Beethoven, for example, cites
references to the composer, his playing technique, his improvisation skills and
some two dozen of his works. This is then cross-referenced to a section under
the entry for Moscheles – ‘And Beethoven’ which lists many of the work played, conducted
or edited. Naturally there are copious references to Moscheles’ own music.
The extensive bibliography
include primary sources located in many archives around the world. A helpful
list of contemporary periodicals is given. There is an exhaustive listing of
‘secondary literature’ from Moscheles’ time to the present.
There are many excellent illustrations
throughout this volume: examples of the composer’s music, tables of concerts
given in London, Vienna and Leipzig and other ‘German speaking’ lands. The plates are grouped together and feature
drawings, paintings, and early photographs of the musician and his family. The front cover of the book is illustrated
with Felix Moscheles’ wonderful oil painting of his father.
USA-based Mark Kroll is a musical
polymath. His webpage show that he is a
performer, teacher, concert administrator, conductor and artistic director of
Opera New England, and last, but certainly not least, a scholar. In this last
field Kroll is a ‘noted authority on performance practice and period
instruments and has written on a wide range of subjects, including French
harpsichord music, 17th-century keyboards, historical performance practice,
contemporary music, the art of transcription, the music of Avison, Couperin,
Geminiani, Beethoven, Hummel, [the present subject] Moscheles and Liszt, and
music for film.’
Ignaz Moscheles and the Changing World of Musical Europe will be of
hugely significant interest to a wide range of musical historians and
listeners. Primarily, as noted above, this is the first major study of the
composer to be published in the 20th/21st Century, so
there is the general interest of discovering Moscheles’ life, work and
achievement in composition and performance. Historians majoring on Beethoven, Bach
and Handel will discover detailed information about their subjects. The
examination of Moscheles’ friendship with Mendelssohn is inspiring and is the underpinning
of much further investigation.
To the growing interest in
British music during the nineteenth century, when we were deemed a land without
music, this book provides foundational material for a deeper understanding of
the framework that was being erected during the early Victorian years which
would lead to the so-called English Musical Renaissance. This was led by men
who were born during Moscheles’ lifetime and would have been aware of his
reputation as a composer, pianist and teacher.
A direct line of succession came through Sir Arthur Sullivan who was one
of his prize students at Leipzig.
Moscheles wrote in his diary that Sullivan ‘was a lad of great promise.’
It was a judicious assessment.
Ignaz Moscheles and
the Changing World of Musical Europe: Mark Kroll
The Boydell Press, 2014 hardback, 410 pages
ISBN: 978 1 84383 935 4
£40.00
With thanks to MusicWeb international where this review was first published.
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