Hummel, Johann Nepomuk

born Nov. 14, 1778, Pozsony, Hung.

died Oct. 17, 1837, Weimar, Thuringia

Austrian composer, pianist, and conductor.

Hummel was a piano prodigy. Moving at age eight to Vienna, where his father was a conductor, he studied for two years with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. After five years of touring, he returned for further study and gave up public performance. He replaced Joseph Haydn as music director at the Esterházy palace but actually made his living teaching and composing for the theatre. In 1814 he recommenced performing with huge success, and he died wealthy. He composed a number of concertos and much chamber music.

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▪ Austrian composer

born Nov. 14, 1778, Pressburg, Hung. [now Bratislava, Slvk.]

died Oct. 17, 1837, Weimar, Thuringia [Germany]

      Austrian composer and outstanding virtuoso pianist during the period of transition from Classical to Romantic musical styles.

      Hummel studied at an early age with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus), at whose house in Vienna he lived for two years. Later, accompanied by his father, he toured Bohemia, Germany, Austria, Denmark, The Netherlands, and England for four years as a child-prodigy pianist. In England he studied a year with Muzio Clementi. Returning to Vienna in 1793, he took instruction from J.G. Albrechtsberger, Joseph Haydn (whom he had met in London), and Antonio Salieri. From 1804 to 1811 he was chapelmaster to the Esterházy family (a post formerly held by Haydn). After further successes as a pianist, conductor, and teacher, he became chapelmaster at Weimar (1818).

      Hummel's most important compositions are his piano works, consisting of trios, sonatas, rondos, and six concerti, all elegant in style and virtuosic in their melodic writing and ornamentation. Fluent, clear in texture, and well-suited to the light Viennese piano action of his day, these works nevertheless lack the emotional depth and coherence evident in the works of Hummel's great contemporary rival, Ludwig van Beethoven (Beethoven, Ludwig van), with whom he maintained an uneasy friendship. (He was a pallbearer at Beethoven's funeral.) Hummel also composed nine operas, three masses, a mandolin concerto, and chamber works, notably the Septet in D Minor. He made innovations in fingering methods, published in his Klavierschule (“Piano School”) in 1828.

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