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Johann Nepomuk Hummel,
virtuoso pianist, composer, conductor,
and teacher was born in Austria in 1778 and, as a young child,
was introduced to W.A. Mozart. After studying with Mozart for
two years, Hummel toured widely as an outstanding child prodigy.
Upon returning to Vienna in
1793,
Hummel continued his studies of counterpoint, composition, and
organ with Haydn, Salieri and Albrechtsberger.
In 1804 Hummel
became Konzertmeister to Prince Esterházy, composing for the
chapel, teaching, and assembling the Haydn archives. He was
Kapellmeister in Stuttgart from 1816 to 1818 and later moved to
the same post in
Weimar.
Here he
conducted the court theatre while making major trips to France,
the Netherlands, Russia, Poland, and London.
He was a prolific
composer producing 127 compositions with opus numbers, nine
posthumous works, and 39 works without opus numbers-most of them
unpublished. He composed in all genres, including operas and
incidental music, ballets, sacred and secular vocal music,
orchestralovertures and dances. However, it is his many works
for solo piano, piano duets and most of all his piano concertos
that really illuminate Hummel’s importance as a composer.
Hummel
composed his first two piano concertos, both clearly written in
the Mozartean classical style, in 1813 and 1816. However, after
his move to Weimar, Hummel, who had befriended Beethoven, wrote
his first romantic works that
clearly
reflect Beethoven’s influence. This is especially noticeable in
the piano concertos in A minor, Op. 85 and the B
minor, Op .89. It has been suggested that the two
larghetto movements in these works later influenced Chopin
as models for his own larghetto compositions.
Piano Concerto in F major (posth.),
No.1.
The richness and emotional poetry of Hummel’s last two piano
concertos, the F major (posth.), No.1 and the A flat major, Op.113,
firmly place him as a composer of considerable depth and craftsmanship. It is
further suggested that these concertos later influenced Chopin considerably.
There is a similar layout in both works, each written with a long orchestral
exposition in the first movements, followed with larghetto movements
completely dominated by the piano solo, followed by third movements in
rondo form. Hummel composed Piano Concerto in F major (posth.) No.1
in 1826 and dedicated it to “Son Altesse Imperiale Madame La Grand-Duchesse de
Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach”.
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