Moszkowski - 15 Etudes de Virtuosité, Op.72 (1903) [Audio + Score]

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Quinze Études de virtuosité "Per aspera", op. 72 (1903)

Pianist : Ilana Vered

0:00 No. 1 E major Vivace
1:55 No. 2 G minor Allegro brillante
3:39 No. 3 G major Vivo e con fuoco
5:13 No. 4 C major Allegro moderato
6:58 No. 5 C major Veloce e leggiero
8:14 No. 6 F major Presto
9:40 No. 7 E♭ major Allegro energico
11:22 No. 8 C major Allegro energico
13:06 No. 9 D minor Allegro
14:40 No. 10 C major Allegro
15:44 No. 11 A♭ major Presto e con leggierezza
17:16 No. 12 D♭ major Presto
18:48 No. 13 A♭ minor Molto animato
22:41 No. 14 C minor Moderato
24:36 No. 15 B major Allegro

BIOGRAPHY

Moszkowski was born in Breslau, Prussia (now the Polish city of Wrocław), into a wealthy Polish-Jewish family whose parents had come to Breslau from Pilica, near Zawiercie, in 1854. He was an ardent Jew at a time when many Jews downplayed their Jewishness. He showed early talent from a very tender age, beginning his musical training at home until 1865, when his family moved to Dresden. There he continued his piano studies at the conservatory. He moved to Berlin in 1869 to continue his studies first at the Julius Stern Conservatory, where he studied piano with Eduard Franck and composition with Friedrich Kiel, and then at Theodor Kullak's Neue Akademie der Tonkunst, where he studied composition with Richard Wüerst and orchestration with Heinrich Dorn. There he became close friends with the Scharwenka brothers, Xaver and Philipp. In 1871 he accepted Kullak's offer to become a teacher in his academy; as he was also a more than competent violinist, he sometimes played first violin in the orchestra.

In 1873 Moszkowski made his first successful appearance as a pianist, and soon began touring the nearby cities in order to gain experience and establish his reputation. Two years later he was already playing his piano concerto on two pianos with Franz Liszt at a matinée before a selected audience invited by Liszt himself.

Retaining his post as a teacher at the Berlin conservatory from 1875, he had among his pupils Frank Damrosch, Joaquín Nin, Ernest Schelling, Joaquín Turina, Carl Lachmund, Bernhard Pollack, Ernst Jonas, Wilhelm Sachs, Helene von Schack, Albert Ulrich and Johanna Wenzel. Moszkowski then travelled successfully throughout Europe with the reputation of being an exceptional concert pianist and brilliant composer, having also gained some recognition as a conductor. In 1884 Moszkowski married the younger sister of pianist and composer Cécile Chaminade, Henriette Chaminade, with whom he had a son named Marcel and a daughter named Sylvia. By the mid-1880s, Moszkowski began suffering from a neurological problem in his arm and gradually diminished his recital activity in favor of composing, teaching and conducting. In 1887 he was invited to London where he had the chance to introduce many of his orchestral pieces. There he was awarded honorary membership of the Royal Philharmonic Society. Three years later his wife left him for the poet Ludwig Fulda and a divorce was issued two years later.

Among his Parisian students were Vlado Perlemuter, Thomas Beecham (who took private lessons in orchestration with him on the advice of André Messager in 1904), Josef Hofmann (of whom he claimed once that there was nothing anyone could teach him), Wanda Landowska, and, informally, Gaby Casadesus. In the summer he rented a villa near Montigny-sur-Loing owned by the French novelist and poet Henri Murger.

His last years he spent in poverty for he had sold all his copyrights and invested the whole lot in German, Polish and Russian bonds and securities, which were rendered worthless on the outbreak of the war. Two of his former pupils, Josef Hofmann and Bernhard Pollack came to his aid. Through the intervention of Pollack, who sent new piano arrangements of Moszkowski's opera Boabdil to Peters Publishing House in Leipzig, he collected an extra 10,000 francs camouflaged as royalties besides a gift of 10,000 marks and personal donations of 10,000 marks from Hofmann and 5,000 marks from himself. On 21 December 1924, when he was ill and heavily in debt, his friends and admirers arranged a grand testimonial concert on his behalf at Carnegie Hall, involving 15 grand pianos on stage. Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Percy Grainger, Josef Lhévinne, Elly Ney, Wilhelm Backhaus and Harold Bauer were among the performers, and Frank Damrosch conducted (Paderewski telegrammed his apologies). Moszkowski's illness lingered and he died from stomach cancer on 4 March of the next year, before the supply of funds could reach him.