Johann Nepomuk Hummel

Johann Nepomuk Hummel was an Austrian composer and pianist. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era. He was among Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri’s best students. He also studied under Joseph Haydn. Hummel significantly influenced later piano music of the nineteenth century, particularly in the works of Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, and Felix Mendelssohn.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article on Johann Nepomuk Hummel.

From the period sources

Johann Nepomuk Hummel was a significant figure in early 19th-century music, known both as a composer and an influential teacher. He received instruction from the eminent contrapuntist Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, who also taught Beethoven, according to Brown’s Biographical Dictionary (1886). Hummel himself became a piano teacher of note, with several pupils mentioned across various biographical dictionaries. Karl Maria von Bock’let, a brilliant pianist, studied piano under Hummel at Weimar, as did Christian Friedrich Ehrlich, who later became a conductor and teacher of singing in Magdeburg (A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 1900, 1905). Heinrich En’cke, a pianist and composer of instructive piano pieces, was also a pupil of Hummel at Weimar (A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 1900, 1905). Ferdinand Gottfried Baake, an organist and pianist, also studied under Hummel (Brown’s Biographical Dictionary, 1886). Sir Julius Benedict, a German composer who later settled in London, studied under both Hummel and Weber (Dictionary of Music, 1896). Hummel’s compositions were performed by others; for instance, the distinguished pianist Arabella Goddard played a Hummel concerto in public at barely six years old (Biographie universelle des musiciens, 1880). His works were also arranged by contemporaries, with Glinka orchestrating Hummel’s Nocturne in F major and his “Revue nocturne” in 1854-55 (Biographie universelle des musiciens, 1880). His piano quintet was considered “well-known” by Grove’s Dictionary (1922).