To anyone interested in the history of the pianoforte and its intimate connection with the transition from High Classicism to full-blown Romanticism, the life of Ignaz Moscheles would seem to comprise an ideal span of years.1 He was born on May 23, 1794, in the Jewish quarter of Prague, when the city still lingered willingly under the aura of Mozart's visits in 1786 and 1787. The pianoforte was a flimsy, delicate contraption then, showing only faint hints of its future triumph over the harpsichord. Haydn had fifteen more years of life in the Austrian capital, and Europeans were just beginning to hear of the startling talents of his twenty-four-year-old pupil, Ludwig van Beethoven.

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