wr - Moscheles Gigue 58: Message Board

wr's Comments

Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870) was a virtuoso pianist, composer, and teacher, quite famous and influential in his time. Besides many charming character pieces of the type popular in the 19th century, he also wrote two sets of etudes which are still technically useful and musically outstanding, along with concertos and other pieces for piano with orchestra.

Post your comments on wr's performance!

Name	Date	Comment
Cinnamonbear	2011-08-23 22:54:19	I'm in love with this piece, wr! It has such wonderful character and there are some lovely surprises in it. You play it with such freedom and sense of fun. Really delightful!!!
wr	2011-08-21 16:56:14	Thanks! There's a bit of back-story on this piece. I knew it from a collection of Moscheles published by Kalmus. When I started working on it for this event, some questions about markings in the score came up. I wondered if there might be another edition for comparison, and that lead, after some research, to discovering that it was published in 1824 together with another piece under the title "Then and Now" (in French and German, not English), subtitled "Une Gigue et un quadrille Rondo". The gigue is the "then", so it is supposed to sound archaic in style, I think. As it happens, the score in its original form with the two pieces is quite rare. When I made an interlibrary loan request for it, my local library found that only one library in the entire US had it, which was at Duke University in North Carolina. They kindly sent a photocopy. It also turns out that the opus number of the piece, 58, was also assigned to his third piano concerto, in g minor. I haven't found out how or why that happened.
Inlanding	2011-08-21 13:34:00	Very spirited playing. I enjoyed the interplay of voices you articulated and the story the music tells. Really great.
Julian (SlatterFan)	2011-08-20 14:45:13	Nice performance! I didn't know he (or any one else in that era) wrote any pieces in that style.