As a pianist Moscheles was distinguished by an incisive, brilliant
touch, wonderfully clear, precise phrasing, and close attention to the
careful accentuation of every phase of the composer's meaning. Of the
younger composers for the piano, Mendelssohn and Schumann were the only
ones with whose works he had any sympathy, though he often complains of
the latter on account of his mysticism. His intelligence had as much
if not more part in his art work than his emotions, and to this we may
attribute that fine symmetry and balance in his own compositions, which
make them equal in this respect to the productions of Mendelssohn.
Chopin he regarded with a sense of admiration mingled with dread, for
he could by no means enter into the peculiar conditions which make the
works of the Polish composer so unique. He wrote of Chopin's "Études,"
in 1838: "My thoughts and consequently my fingers ever stumble and
sprawl at certain crude modulations, and I find Chopin's productions
on the whole too sugared, too little worthy of a man and an educated
musician, though there is much charm and originality in the national
color of his motive." When he heard Chopin play in after-years, however,
he confessed the fascination of the performance, and bewailed his own
incapacity to produce such effects in execution, though himself one of
the greatest pianists in the world. So, too, Moscheles, though dazzled
by Liszt's brilliant virtuosoism and power of transforming a single
instrument into an orchestra, shook his head in doubt over such
performances, and looked on them as charlatanism, which, however
magnificent as an exhibition of talent, would ultimately help to degrade
the piano by carrying it out of its true sphere. Moscheles himself was
a more bold and versatile player than any other performer of his school,
but he aimed assiduously to confine his efforts within the perfectly
legitimate and well-established channels of pianism.
As an extemporaneous player, perhaps no pianist has ever lived who could
surpass Moscheles. His improvisation on themes suggested by the audience
always made one of the most attractive features of his concerts. His
profound musical knowledge, his strong sense of form, the clearness and
precision with which he instinctively clothed his ideas, as well as the
fertility of the ideas themselves, gave his improvised pieces something
of the same air of completeness as if they were the outcome of hours of
laborious solitude. His very lack of passion and fire were favorable
to this clear-cut and symmetrical expression. His last improvisation
in public, on themes furnished by the audience, formed part of the
programme of a concert at London, in 1865, given by Mme. Jenny Lind
Goldschmidt, in aid of the sufferers by the war between Austria and
Prussia, where he extemporized for half an hour on "See the Conquering
Hero Comes," and on a theme from the andante of Beethoven's C Minor
Symphony, in a most brilliant and astonishing style.
Aside from his greatness as a virtuoso and composer for the piano-forte,
whose works will always remain classics in spite of vicissitudes
of public opinion, even as those of Spohr will for the violin, the
influence of Moscheles in furtherance of a solid and true musical taste
was very great, and worthy of special notice. Perhaps no one did more
to educate the English mind up to a full appreciation of the greatest
musical works. As teacher, conductor, player, and composer, the life
of Ignaz Moscheles was one of signal and permanent worth, and its
influences fertilized in no inconsiderable streams the public thought,
not only of his own times, but indirectly of the generation which has
followed. It is not necessary to attribute to him transcendent genius,
but lie possessed, what was perhaps of equal value to the world, an
intellect and temperament splendidly balanced to the artistic needs of
his epoch. The list of Moscheles's numbered compositions reaches Op.
142, besides a large number of ephemeral productions which he did not
care to preserve.