Johann Nepomuk Hummel | |
|---|---|
 1820 portrait | |
| Born | 14 November 1778 |
| Died | 17 October 1837 (aged 58) |
| Occupations |
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| Works | List of compositions |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Eduard [de],Carl |
Johann Nepomuk Hummel (14 November 1778 – 17 October 1837) was an Austrian composer and pianist. His music reflects thetransition from theClassical to theRomantic musical era. He was a pupil ofWolfgang Amadeus Mozart,Antonio Salieri, andJoseph Haydn. Hummel significantly influenced later piano music of the nineteenth century, particularly in the works ofFrédéric Chopin,Franz Liszt, andFelix Mendelssohn.
Hummel was born inPressburg, Kingdom of Hungary (now Bratislava,Slovakia). Unusually for that period, he was an only child. He was named after the Czech patron saintJohn of Nepomuk. His father, Johannes Hummel,[1] was the director of the Imperial School of Military Music inVienna; his mother, Margarethe Sommer Hummel, was the widow of the wigmaker Josef Ludwig. The couple married just four months before his birth.[2]
Hummel was a child prodigy. At the age of eight, he was offered music lessons by the classical composerWolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was impressed with his ability. Hummel was taught and housed by Mozart for two years free of charge. He made his first concert appearance at the age of nine, at one of Mozart's concerts.[3]
Hummel's father then took him on a European tour, arriving inLondon in 1790, where he received lessons fromMuzio Clementi.[4] He played to much acclaim at theHanover Square Rooms, performing a Mozart piano concerto and a sonata of his own.[5] In 1791, at the same venue, the thirteen-year-old Hummel premiered a piano trio by Haydn.[6]
He returned to Vienna in 1793, giving concerts along his route.[7] Upon his return, he was taught byJohann Georg Albrechtsberger,Joseph Haydn, andAntonio Salieri.[8] At about this time, youngLudwig van Beethoven arrived in Vienna and also took lessons from Haydn and Albrechtsberger. The two men became friends, and Hummel took part in several performances of Beethoven's orchestral workWellingtons Sieg.[9]
On 16 May 1813, he married the opera singerElisabeth Röckel.[10] The following year, at her request, was spent touring Russia and the rest of Europe. The couple had two sons.[11] The younger,Carl (1821–1907), became a well-known landscape painter. The older,Eduard [de], worked as pianist, conductor, and composer; he moved to the U.S. and died inTroy, New York.
Hummel visited Beethoven in Vienna on several occasions with his wife Elisabeth and his pupilFerdinand Hiller.[12] Hummel would later perform at Beethoven's memorial concert.[13]
Hummel had made friends withFranz Schubert, who dedicated hislast three piano sonatas to Hummel. However, both men had died by the time of the first publication of the sonatas, and the publishers changed the dedication toRobert Schumann.[14]
In 1804, Hummel becameKonzertmeister toNikolaus II, Prince Esterházy's estate atEisenstadt. Although he had taken over many of the duties ofKapellmeister because Haydn's health did not permit him to perform them himself, he continued to be known simply as theKonzertmeister out of respect to Haydn, receiving the title ofKapellmeister, or music director, to the Eisenstadt court only after the older composer died in May 1809. He remained in the service of Prince Esterházy for seven years altogether before being dismissed in May 1811 for neglecting his duties.[15]
Hummel later held the positions ofKapellmeister in Stuttgart from 1816 to 1818 and inWeimar from 1819 to 1837, where he formed a friendship withGoethe. Hummel brought one of the first musicians' pension schemes into existence, givingbenefit concert tours to help raise funds.[16] In his fight against unethical music publishers, Hummel also was a key figure in establishing the principles of intellectual property and copyright law.[17]
In 1825, the Parisian music-publishing firm ofAristide Farrenc announced that it had acquired the French publishing rights for all future works by Hummel. In 1830, Hummel gave three concerts in Paris; at one of them, a rondo by Hummel was performed by Aristide Farrenc's wife, the composerLouise Farrenc, who also "sought Hummel's comments on her keyboard technique".[18]
In 1832, at the age of 54 and in failing health, Hummel began to devote less energy to his duties as music director at Weimar. In addition, after Goethe's death in March 1832 he had less contact with local theatrical circles and as a result was in partial retirement from 1832 until his death in 1837.[11]
At the end of his life, Hummel saw the rise of a new school of young composers and virtuosi, and found his own music slowly going out of fashion. His disciplined and cleanClementi-style technique, and his balanced classicism, opposed him to the rising school of tempestuous bravura displayed by the likes of Liszt. Composing less and less, but still highly respected and admired, Hummel died peacefully in Weimar on 17 October 1837.[citation needed] As with Haydn, Mozart, and some other notable composers of the time, Hummel was afreemason.[19] Hummel bequeathed a considerable portion of his famous garden behind his Weimar residence to his masonic lodge. His grave is in theHistorical Cemetery, Weimar.
Although Hummel died famous, with a lasting posthumous reputation apparently secure, he and his music were quickly forgotten at the onrush of theRomantic period, perhaps because his classical ideas were seen as old-fashioned. Later, during the classical revival of the early twentieth century, Hummel was passed over. As withFranz Joseph Haydn, whose musical revival had to wait until the second half of the twentieth century, Hummel was overshadowed by Mozart and especially, Beethoven. Due to an increasing number of recordings and live performances, his music has become reestablished in the classical repertoire.
Notable students includeFerdinand Hiller andAlexander Müller.[20]
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Hummel's music took a different direction from that of Beethoven. Looking forward, Hummel stepped into modernity through pieces such as hisPiano Sonata in F-sharp minor, Op. 81, cherished byRobert Schumann,[21] and his Fantasy, Op. 18, which would have a major influence forSchubert'sWanderer Fantasy,[22] for piano. These pieces are examples where Hummel may be seen to both challenge the classical harmonic structures and to stretch thesonata form.
His mainoeuvre is for the piano, on which instrument he was one of the great virtuosi of his day. He wrote eightpiano concertos, adouble concerto for violin and piano, tenpiano sonatas, eightpiano trios, apiano quartet, two piano septets, apiano quintet, andfour hand piano music. Of his eight piano concertos the first two are early compositions (S. 4/WoO 24 and S. 5) and the later six were numbered and published with opus numbers (Opp. 36, 85 (number 2 in A minor), 89, 110, 113, and posth), his often performed Piano Concerto No. 5 in Ab Op 113.
Aside from the piano, Hummel wrote a wind octet, acello sonata, amandolin concerto, a mandolin sonata, aTrumpet Concerto in E major written for thekeyed trumpet (usually heard now in E-flat major – better suited to modern trumpets), a "GrandBassoon Concerto" in F, a quartet forclarinet,violin,viola, andcello, 22operas andSingspiels,masses, and more. He also wrote avariation on atheme supplied byAnton Diabelli for part 2 ofVaterländischer Künstlerverein.
Hummel was very interested in theguitar and was talented with the instrument. He was prolific in his writing for it, beginning with opus 7 and finishing with opus 93. Other guitar works include Opp. 43, 53, 62, 63, 66, 71, and 91, which are written for a mixture of instruments.[23]
Hummel's output is marked by the conspicuous lack of asymphony.
While in Germany, Hummel publishedA Complete Theoretical and Practical Course of Instruction on the Art of Playing the Piano Forte (Anweisung zum Pianofortespiel, 1828). It sold thousands of copies within days of its publication and brought about a new style of fingering and of playing ornaments.
Later nineteenth-century pianistic technique was influenced by Hummel, through his instruction ofCarl Czerny who later taughtFranz Liszt. Czerny had transferred to Hummel after studying three years with Beethoven. Liszt knew and admired Hummel and often performed his works, a particular favourite being the Septet Op. 74.[24]
Hummel's influence also can be seen in the early works ofFelix Mendelssohn,Frédéric Chopin, andRobert Schumann. The shadow of Hummel'sPiano Concerto in B minor as well as hisPiano Concerto in A minor may be particularly perceived in Chopin's concertos.[25] This is unsurprising, considering that Chopin must have heard Hummel on one of the latter's concert tours to Poland and Russia, and that Chopin kept Hummel's piano concertos in his active repertoire.Harold C. Schonberg, inThe Great Pianists, writes "...the openings of the Hummel A minor and theChopin E minor concertos are too close to be coincidental".[26] In relation to Chopin'sPreludes, Op. 28, Schonberg says: "It also is hard to escape the notion that Chopin was very familiar with Hummel's now-forgotten Op. 67,[27] composed in 1815 – a set oftwenty-four preludes in all major and minor keys, starting with C major".
Schumann studied Hummel'sAnweisung zum Pianofortespiel, and considered becoming his pupil.[28] Liszt's fatherAdam refused to pay the high tuition fee Hummel was used to charging (thus Liszt ended up studying with Czerny). Czerny,Friedrich Silcher,Ferdinand Hiller,Sigismond Thalberg, andAdolf von Henselt were among Hummel's most prominent students. He also briefly gave some lessons toFelix Mendelssohn.[29]
According to Schubert's friend Albert Stadler, Schubert'sTrout Quintet was modelled on an earlier Hummel work, the quintet version of his Septet in D minor for Flute, Oboe, Horn, Viola, Cello, Bass, and Piano, Op. 74.[30] It also may have been influenced by Hummel's Quintet in E-flat, Op. 87.[31]
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