Moszkowski, Maurice

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Moszkowski, Maurice

Maurische Fantasie (Moorish Fantasy). Ballet music from the opera Boabdil

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Maurice Moszkowski – Maurische Fantasie

(b. Breslau, 23 August 1854 — d. Paris, 4 March 1925)

Ballet Music
from the Opera Boabdil, Op. 49

Preface
Moritz Moszkowski is probably best known to audiences today as the composer of a considerable body of superior salon piano music (e.g. En Automme Op. 36/4, Étincelles Op. 36/6, Caprice espagnole Op. 37, La Jongleuse Op. 52/4, Valse brillante in A flat, etc) performed by virtuosi such as Josef Lhévinne, Josef Hofmann, Vladimir Horowitz, Sergei Rachmaninov, and Jorge Bolet, especially as encores. Although an able composer, in his large-scale works Moszkowski lacks the strong sense of individuality and originality that would allow these works to claim a permanent place in the repertoire as many of his piano miniatures have done. Even today, the charm of these latter works is still very much apparent while his larger-scaled works have virtually disappeared from the repertoire. As a child Moszkowski evinced outstanding talent and ability as both a pianist and a violinist and entered the Dresden Conser-vatory at age eleven, then moving to Berlin in 1869 to study initially at the Stern Conservatory with Eduard Frank (piano) and Friedrich Kiel (composition), and subsequently at Theodor Kullak’s Neue Akademie der Tonkunst with Kullak (piano) and Richard Würst (composition). At age just 17 Kullak invited Moszkowski to join the teaching staff at the Akademie, and he taught there from 1871 until 1897 when he relocated in Paris. He was a fine pianist and acquired a reputation as a brilliant virtuoso and sympathetic interpreter of the Classical and Romantic repertory. Moszkowski made his Berlin debut in 1873 and in 1886 made his London debut as well. Until around 1900 Moszkowski toured extensively as both a pianist and a conductor until a nervous condition brought a premature end to a promising pianistic career. There-after he concentrated on conducting, composing and teaching. Moszkowski was elected a member of the Berlin Akademie der Künste in 1893. (New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 2nd edition, Vol. 17, p. 188. London: Macmillan, 2000. Other sources, however, state that Moszkowski’s election to the Berlin Academy of Arts occurred in 1899.) Around the same time, he was also made an honorary member of the Philharmonic Society in Britain. From about 1910 Moszkowski’s fortunes went into decline. It appears that at the height of his fame in the early years of the twentieth century Moszkowski sold the copyrights of his works to his publishers and invested his savings in the German, Polish and Russian securities which became worthless as a result of the outbreak of World War I and, consequently, the remainder of Mosz-kowski’s life was spent in virtual poverty. In addition, his marriage to the sister of the French woman composer Cécile Chaminade (1857–1944) broke down during this period and she deserted him, taking their daughter with her. The popularity of Moszkowski’s music, especially that for the piano, centred around the salon genre and the gradual shift in musical taste in the closing decade of the nineteenth century with a move away from that of the music salon inevitably brought about a waning of interest in his music. The cumulative effect of these events affected his health and in the early 1920s Moszkowski developed stomach cancer which eventually caused his death in 1924.

Moszkowski’s three sets of Spanish Dances for piano duet (Op. 12, 21 & 65) and the exotic gypsy elements captured in this music became indelibly associated with him. His ‘Spanish style’ is reflected in his three-act opera Boabdil, der letzte Maurenkönig Op. 49 (Boabdil, the last Moor king, 1892) which is set in Spain. Although conceived along the lines of Meyerbeerian grand opera Moszkowski fails to sustain the musical and dramatic tensions over such an extended structure. Boabdil was premiered in Berlin on 21 April 1892 and subsequently performed in Prague and New York, but was never able to establish itself in the operatic repertoire. Its ‘Spanish style’ ballet music, the Maurische Fantasie (i.e. Moorish Fantasy), survived as an independent orchestral piece and its form is outlined as follows:

After the brief opening fanfare the first section begins with a recurring two-bar figure in the accompaniment (Ex., a) over which emerges a melancholic melody (a1; bb. 12–35), and this is followed by a second equally doleful melody (a2) after which the opening melodic idea returns and closes this section. In the following middle section (un poco agitato) the accompaniment idea of the opening section now assumes the principal thematic role (Ex., b) and two further thematic ideas deriving from this material emerge in the course of this section which closes with a prolongation on the dominant. In the recapitulation the a1 theme is stated only once, after which occurs an extended cadential passage reinforcing the tonic key that brings the music to a close.

Example

Although it is structurally quite simple, Moszkowski’s Maurische Fantasie is interesting because of the brooding quality of the music which is also tinged with an ostensibly exotic Spanish flavour. The duration of this piece is approximately 7:30 minutes, and the opera was published by C. F. Peters (Ed. 2618) in 1892.

A few misprints occur in the Maurische Fantasie and these are identified as follows:
b. 32/2.: vn. 1 rhythm does not agree with that of clarinet; clarinet correct.
b. 84/2.: clarinet rhythm does not agree with that of vn. 1; vn. 1 correct.
b. 115: # missing from Ob. 2 unlike as in b. 117.
b. 120/1b & 2a: vn. 1 should be e & d as in vn. 2; not d & c# as written.

R. A. Dee, Ph. D., Hull, United Kingdom, January 2009

For performance material please contact the publisher Peters, Frankfurt.

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