Piano Concerto No. 2 in E flat Major, Op. 56

It is my express wish that all monetary compensation that may be my due from this video accrue instead to all holders of copyright. Should a change in copyright status or holder necessitate its removal, I hereby request immediate notification prior to the filing of a claim with YouTube, and I will not hesitate to delete it as soon as possible. Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870) Piano Concerto No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 56 I. Allegro moderato 0:00 II. Adagio 13:01 III. Allegretto: Tempo di Polacca 20:45 Sinfonia da Camera Ian Hobson, piano/conductor (Isaac) Ignaz Moscheles (1794–1870) was a Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso, whose career after his early years was based initially in London, and later at Leipzig, where he joined his friend and sometime pupil Felix Mendelssohn as Professor of Piano at the Conservatoire. Moscheles was born in Prague on May 23, 1794, to 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 1808 in Vienna. 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 'Isaac' to 'Ignaz'. He was one of the leading virtuosi resident in Vienna during the 1814-1815 Congress of Vienna and it was at this time that he wrote his enormously popular virtuosic Alexander Variations, Op. 32, for piano and orchestra, which he later played throughout Europe. Here too he became a close friend of Meyerbeer (at that time still a piano virtuoso, not yet a composer) and their extemporized piano-duets were highly acclaimed. Moscheles was also familiar with Hummel and Kalkbrenner. While in Vienna Moscheles was able to meet his idol Beethoven, who was so impressed with the young man's abilities that he entrusted him with the preparation of the piano score of his opera Fidelio. Moscheles's good relations with Beethoven were to prove important to both at the end of Beethoven's life. After his Viennese period there followed for Moscheles a sensational series of European concert tours—it was after hearing Moscheles play at Carlsbad that the boy Robert Schumann was fired to become a piano virtuoso himself. But Moscheles found an especially warm welcome in London, where in 1822 he was awarded an honorary membership of the London Academy of Music, and he had no hesitation in settling there after his marriage. Moscheles visited most of the great capitals of Europe, making his first appearance in Lo