Moritz Moszkowski was a German composer, pianist, and teacher of Polish-Jewish descent. His brother Alexander Moszkowski was a famous writer and satirist in Berlin. Ignacy Paderewski said: "After Chopin, Moszkowski best understands how to write for the piano, and his writing embraces the whole gamut of piano technique." Although less known today, Moszkowski was well respected and popular during the late nineteenth century. He showed early talent from a very tender age, beginning his musical training at home until 1865, when his family moved to Dresden. There he continued his piano studies at the conservatory. He moved to Berlin in 1869 to continue his studies first at the Julius Stern Conservatory, where he studied piano with Eduard Franck and composition with Friedrich Kiel, and then at Theodor Kullak's Neue Akademie der Tonkunst, where he studied composition with Richard Wüerst and orchestration with Heinrich Dorn. There he became close friends with the Scharwenka brothers, Xaver and Philipp. In 1871 he accepted Kullak's offer to become a teacher in his academy; as he was also a more than competent violinist, he sometimes played first violin in the orchestra.