The Deux Études Op 98, were composed for Moscheles’ own comprehensive tutor of piano technique Méthode des Méthodes, which he published with François Fétis at the end of 1840 in France, Germany and England. The concluding part comprises some eighteen studies specially commissioned from many of the best composers of the day, its most famous offspring being Chopin’s Trois Nouvelles Études composed in 1839. Liszt, Mendelssohn, Thalberg and Henselt also contributed.
L’Enjouement (playfulness) is an unassuming but excellently written piece full of invention, in cantabile style with an inner accompaniment of off-beat semiquavers. The more virtuosic
L’Ambition in G minor starts quietly with an expressive but agitato melody over rushing triplets, but soon more and more complex passagework keeps impetuously bursting forth. Moscheles had been appointed pianist to Prince Albert in early 1840, and later presented an inscribed copy of the complete work to the Prince as dedicatee.
from notes by Henry Roche © 2003
;)
