f execution was no less the
outcome of the mechanical difference between the two vehicles of
expression than the result of personal idiosyncrasies. The English
instrument was speedily developed into the production of a richer,
fuller, and more sonorous tone, while the Viennese piano-forte continued
for a long time to be distinguished by its light, thin, sweet quality of
sound, and an action so sensitive that the slightest pressure produced
a sound from the key, so that the term "breathing on the keys" became
a current expression, Clementi's piano favored a bold, masculine,
brilliant style of playing, while the Viennese piano led to a rapid,
fluent, delicate treatment. The former player founded the school which
has culminated, through a series of great players, in the magnificent
virtuosoism of Franz Liszt, while the Vienna school has no nearer
representative than Tgnaz Moscheles, one of the greatest players in the
history of the pianoforte, who, whether judged by his gifts as a
concert performer, a composer for the instrument which he so brilliantly
adorned, or from his social and intellectual prominence, must be set
apart as peculiarly a representative man. There were other eminent
players, such as Hummel, Czerny, and Herz, contemporary with Moscheles
and belonging to the same _genre_ as a pianist, but these names do not
stand forth with the same clear and permanent luster in their relation
to the musical art.

Ignaz Moscheles was born at Prague, May 30, 1794, his parents being
well-to-do people of Hebrew stock. His father, a cloth merchant, was
passionately fond of music, and was accustomed to say, "One of my
children must become a thoroughbred musician." Ignaz was soon selected
as the one on whom the experiment should be made, and the rapid
progress he made justified the accident of choice, for all of the family
possessed some musical talent. The boy progressed too fast, for he
attempted at the age of seven to play Beethoven's "Sonata Pathetique."
He was traveling on the wrong road, attempting what he could in no
way attain, when his father took him to Dionys Weber, one of the best
teachers of the time. "I come," said the parent, "to you as our first
musician, for sincere truth instead of empty flattery. I want to find
out from you if my boy has such genuine talent that you can make a
really good musician of him." "Naturally, I was called on to play," says
Moscheles, in his "Autobiography," "and I was bungler enough