Essential Hummel
Though his star may have faded when compared to that of his elder contemporary Beethoven, Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778–1837) was one of the child prodigies of the age and studied with Mozart from the age of eight. His music lies on the cusp between the formal perfection of the 18th century and the showy virtuosity of the 19th. Like Mozart, he toured Europe as a teenage prodigy and continued to perform widely throughout his life.
Read more…Hummel's virtuosic keyboard technique and gift for melody resulted in a string of piano concertos, but it is for his Trumpet Concerto that he is best remembered today. More recently, musicians and audiences have rediscovered his chamber music, including a handful of particularly fine piano trios, and his Masses, some composed for the Esterházy family and thus the successors to Haydn's magnificent late Masses. His influence can be felt in a number of works by Chopin and by Schumann, who considered studying with him; so too did Liszt, whose father found Hummel's fees too high and so sent him to Czerny instead. Hummel was also a prolific arranger, making chamber versions of symphonies and concertos by Mozart, Beethoven and others – although Beethoven detested his piano reduction of Fidelio. The two fell out after a performance of Beethoven's Mass in C, which the older composer thought Hummel had failed adequately to prepare. Thus, although Hummel composed in virtually every genre, he pointedly avoided the area in which Beethoven was preeminent – the symphony.