Ignaz Moscheles

Isaac Ignaz Moscheles (; 23 May 1794 10 March 1870) was a Bohemian piano virtuoso and composer. He was based initially in London and later in Leipzig, where he joined his friend and sometime pupil Felix Mendelssohn as professor of piano in the Conservatory. Life Early life and career Moscheles was born 1794 in Prague, Bohemia, the son of Klara Popper (Lieben) and Joachim Moises Moscheles. He was from 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 Vienna in 1808. 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 “I