Moritz Moszkowski was a pianist and composer from Germany who was best known for his Spanish dances. Moszkowski studied piano in Dresden and Berlin, where he performed for the first time in 1873. He moved to Paris in 1879. In 1876, he wrote two Spanische Tänze, Opus 12, for piano duet and later in several separate arrangements. They were long regarded as light-hearted samples of national music. Other efforts at using national idioms failed miserably. The ballet in his opera Boabdil der Maurenkönig (1892; "Boabdil the Moor King") was particularly well-known. He also composed chamber music and concerti.