Last Words with Dr. Ian Moschenross

Last Saturday, former professor Dr. Ian Moschenross preformed a piano recital entitled “Last Words,” featuring some of the last piano pieces composed by Ludwig von Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, and Franz Shubert.

On his program, Moschenross said, “I have always been drawn to the late piano works of Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms. These works have certain special, almost ineffable qualities that commend them to careful study. I started to toy with the idea of this recital about ten years ago when I was reading reviews of other recitals featuring last/late works for piano. Many were programs of, say, the last three piano sonatas of Beethoven or Schubert. In thinking about these programs and my affinity for ‘the late style,’ I noticed that many of the concerts I was reading about limited their programming to sonatas. But the ‘farewells’ to the piano by Beethoven and Brahms, for instance, aren’t sonatas at all.”

“This program brings together the last-composed piano pieces of these composers, only one of which is a sonata. But all three show elements of “late style” both from the perspective of their individual compositional evolutions as well as in a larger, more general sense of “lateness.”

Moschenross teaches music theory, music history, and piano courses at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania.

Kiersten Fuhr Contributing Writer