Today's Composer of the Day! is Johann Nepomuk Hummel! (1778-1837)
Hummel studied with Mozart, Clementi, and Albrechtsberger. He was a noted pianist, pedagogue, and composer in his time. He is unjustly neglected today.
He was Austrian, Slovakian, or Hungarian, depending on the date of the map you check. (We mostly call him Austrian.)
While he studied with Mozart, he actually lived with Wolfgang himself for several years! That must have been both influential and a great time. Or so one supposes.
He wrote an influential three-volume tome called A Complete Theoretical and Practical Course on the Art of Pianoforte Playing. Unsurprisingly, it is about playing the piano.
His middle name was Nepomuk, which is kind of awesome. Here is some Hummel for you:
Link to Trumpet Concerto (sorry, embedding was disabled).
He was Kappelmeister in three cities. He was extremely prolific, writing keyboard, chamber, opera, and sacred music. Student of Mozart and contemporary of Beethoven, he is sort of lost in the annals of music history.
You should listen to his music.
11/12/08
Composer of the Day!
Posted by Sator Arepo at 12:33 PM
Labels: Composer of the Day, Hummel, You sort of forced my hand here
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2 comments:
Hummel looks sort of like someone we used to hang out with. Minus a pitcher.
There's something funny about that name too. "The lady of the night gave him a nasty Hummel in the alley behind the drugstore."
Hello there, thanks for reading my blog!
Your site is very interesting. I'm afraid I'm a total dunce when it comes to "classical" music. I'm trying to "de-dunce" myself though. Since my fiance doesn't speak the local language we had to give up on going to the theater and bought the season tickets for the philharmonic instead. I'm enjoying it so far but can only describe the music as "pretty" or "melancholic". A dunce, I told you.
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