In January, 1825, Moscheles, in the course of his musical wanderings,
gave several concerts at Hamburg. Among the crowd of listeners who
came to hear the great pianist was Charlotte Embden, the daughter of an
excellent Hamburg family. She was enchanted by the playing of Moscheles,
and, when she accidentally made the acquaintance of the performer at the
house of a mutual acquaintance, the couple quickly became enamored of
each other. A brief engagement of less than a month was followed by
marriage, and so Moscheles entered into a relation singularly felicitous
in all the elements which make domestic life most blessed. After a brief
tour in the Rhenish cities, and a visit to Paris, Moscheles proceeded to
London, where he had determined to make his home, for in no country had
such genuine and unaffected cordiality boon shown him, and nowhere
were the rewards of musical talent, whether as teacher, virtuoso, or
composer, more satisfying to the man of high ambition. He made London
his home for twenty years, and during this time became one of the most
prominent figures in the art circles of that great city. Moscheles's
mental accomplishments and singular geniality of nature contributed,
with his very great abilities as a musician, to give him a position
attained by but few artists. He gave lessons to none but the most
talented pupils, and his services were sought by the most wealthy
families of the English capital, though the ability to pay great prices
was by no means a passport to the good graces of Moscheles. Among
the pupils who early came under the charge of this great master was
Thalberg, who even then was a brilliant player, but found in the exact
knowledge and great experience of Moscheles that which gave the
crowning finish to his style. Busy in teaching, composing, and public
performance; busy in responding to the almost incessant demands made by
social necessity on one who was not only intimate in the best circles
of London society, but the center to whom all foreign artists of merit
gravitated instantly they arrived in London; busy in confidential
correspondence with all the great musicians of Europe, who discussed
with the genial and sympathetic Moscheles all their plans and
aspirations, and to whom they turned in their moments of trouble, he
was indeed a busy man; and had it not been for the loving labors of his
wife, who was his secretary, his musical copyist, and his assistant in
a myriad of ways, he would have been unequal to his burden. Moscheles's
diary tells the story of a man whose life, though one of tireless
industry, was singularly serene and happy, and without those salient
accidents and vicissitudes which make up the material of a picturesque
life.
He made almost yearly tours to the Continent for concert-giving
purposes, and kept his friendship with the great composers of the
Continent green by personal contact. Beethoven was the god of his
musical idolatry, and his pilgrimage to Vienna was always delightful
to him. When Beethoven, in the early part of 1827, was in dire distress
from poverty, just before his death, it was to Moscheles that he applied
for assistance; and it was this generous friend who promptly arranged
the concert with the Philharmonic Society by which one hundred pounds
sterling was raised to alleviate the dying moments of the great man
whom his own countrymen would have let starve, even as they had allowed
Schubert and Mozart to suffer the direst want on their deathbeds.
An adequate record of Moscheles's life during the twenty years of his
London career would be a pretty full record of all matters of musical
interest occurring during this time. In 1832 he was made one of the
directors of the Philharmonic Society, and in 1837-'38 he conducted
with signal success Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony." When Sir Henry Bishop
resigned, in 1845, Moscheles was made the conductor, and thereafter
wielded the baton over this orchestra, the noblest in England. Among the
yearly pleasures to which our pianist looked forward with the greatest
interest were the visits of Mendelssohn, between whom and Moscheles
there was the most tender friendship. Whole pages of his diary are given
up to an account of Mendelssohn's doings, and to the most enthusiastic
expression of his love and admiration for one of the greatest musical
geniuses of modern times.
We can not attempt to follow up the placid and gentle current of
Moscheles's life, flowing on to ever-increasing honor and usefulness,
but hasten to the period when he left England in 1846, to
become associated with Mendelssohn in the conduct of the Leipzig
Conservatorium, then recently organized. Mendelssohn lived but a few
months after achieving this great monument of musical education, but
Moscheles remained connected with it for nearly twenty years, and to his
great zeal, knowledge, and executive skill is due in large measure the
solid success of the institution. Mendelssohn's early death, while yet
in the very prime of creative genius, was a stunning blow to Moscheles;
more so, perhaps, than would have occurred from the loss of any one
except his beloved wife, the mother of his five children. Our musician
died himself, in Leipzig, March 10, 1870, and his passage from this
world was as serene and quiet as his passage through had been. He lived
to see his daughters married to men of high worth and position, and his
sons substantially placed in life. Perhaps few distinguished musicians
have lived a life of such monotonous happiness, unmarked by those events
which, while they give romantic interest to a career, make the gift at
the expense of so much personal misery.