Thomas hummel composer biography

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Hummel’s treatise A Complete Theoretical and Practical Course of Instruction on the Art of Playing the Piano Forte (1828) was influential in shaping 19th-century piano technique. During the Eisenstadt period he composed several concerti, many sacred works, including five large-scale Masses and many works for solo piano.

Hummel established an international reputation as a touring pianist before taking prominent posts, including Kapellmeister at the Esterházy court and later in Weimar, where he spent the last decades of his career. Since 2014, he deals with Eastern European culture and politics and the music setting of contemporary russian literature.

Works at the Experimentalstudio des SWR.

His compositional work ranges from solo to orchestral settings, often in conjunction with electronic media. He became a pupil of Mozart, living in the Mozart household for two years, and later studied with Haydn, Albrechtsberger and Salieri. It was during this visit that he formed a friendship with Schubert, who dedicated his last three piano sonatas to Hummel, although the publishers re-directed this dedication to Schumann after Schubert's death.

In 1830 Hummel visited Paris and London, his first visit there for forty years, and the climax of his playing career.

He was considered in his time to be one of Europe's finest pianist-composers. The ePlayer and the Orchestrator - part of conTimbre - allow for the first time the authentic interpretation of contemporary scores and the algorithmic orchestration. Indeed, two subsequent visits to London in 1831 and 1833 showed his reputation already in decline, and a visit to Vienna in 1834 was also a disappointment.

After two years in England, during which time Johann had further lessons with Clementi, father and son travelled to Holland where they stayed for several months before returning to Vienna. His Trumpet Concerto in E major is his most widely performed piece today, while his piano concertos and solo works were admired for their clarity and virtuosity.

Founder and owner of the enterprise conTimbre (www.contimbre.com).

Hummel composed extensively in the Classical and early Romantic styles, leaving concertos, piano sonatas, chamber works and sacred music. It was during this time that he developed a close friendship with Goethe, and no visit to Weimar was complete without seeing Goethe and hearing Hummel play.

From around 1805 until shortly before his death, Hummel composed around a dozen works for piano and orchestra, over half of which bore the title 'concerto'.

He taught at the University of Freiburg and the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. He also developed his famous piano teaching method. A child prodigy, he impressed Mozart so much on the family's arrival in Vienna that he became a pupil of his at the age of eight, and lived with the Mozarts for two years, the two forming a life-long relationship.

He broke his travels to hasten to Vienna in 1827 to visit the dying Beethoven, was a pall-bearer at his funeral, and, following Beethoven's wishes, organised a memorial concert, where he improvised on themes from the dead composer's works. In addition to his mother language German, he speaks English, French and Russian.

Hummel has been developing the database conTimbre, which has become the world's largest database of the sounds of the contemporary orchestra.

He also composed many short theatrical pieces, and minuets and dances for orchestra.

In 1811 Hummel returned to Vienna and continued life as a pianist and composer, marrying a well-known singer, Elizabeth Röckel, with whom he had two sons. Ill health in his last three years reduced his activities, and his death was regarded as the passing of an era, marked in Vienna by a performance of Mozart's Requiem.