IGNAZ MOSCHELES (1794-1870): Complete Piano Sonatas - in D, Op. 22, in B Flat, Op. 27, in E, Op. 41 and in F Sharp Minor, Op. 49.

Description: These sonatas were all written within the relatively condensed span of around three years: Op. 22 dates from 1814, while the single-movement Sonate mélancolique Op.49 in the pathos-laden key of F sharp minor was written the same year but only published in 1821. Also composed in Vienna in 1814, the three movements of the Op.27 Sonata caracteristique centre around a Viennese popular song, “Freut euch des Lebens“, later immortalized in a waltz by Johann Strauss (and then quoted by Mahler in his Ninth Symphony). Cast on the grandest scale in four movements, the Grande Sonate, Op.41, written in 1816, pays homage through its greater expressive and dramatic concentration to its dedicatee Beethoven. Moscheles was capable of skillfully wrought musical structures, in which a Classical balance of thematic ideas is tempered with an early Romantic dynamism. Pathos in general, and chromaticism in particular, are not overplayed, and his music is never sentimental. Michele Bolla (1819 Graf copy fortepiano).