约翰·尼波默克·胡梅尔

作品节选

胡梅尔的创作以钢琴音乐为中心。其作品风格雅致，曲调优美，早期类似莫扎特风格，后期作品较为接近浪漫主义。旋律多用半音变化，富于装饰性。胡梅尔的演奏和创作活动对肖邦、舒曼、李斯特等作曲家都有较大影响。他的代表作品如下：

• E大调小号协奏曲，1803年
• C大调第2号七重奏，1829年

胡梅尔曾将原来是长笛、单簧管与小号，以及小提琴、大提琴、低音提琴、钢琴等的七重奏编制，改编为小提琴、中提琴、大提琴、低音提琴与钢琴演奏，后者同舒伯特著名的《鳟鱼》五重奏，是音乐历史上少见的乐器配置。

Johann Nepomuk Hummel (14 November 1778 – 17 October 1837) 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.

Life

Early life

Hummel was born in Pressburg, Kingdom of Hungary (now Bratislava, Slovakia). Unusually for that period, he was an only child. He was named after the Czech patron saint John of Nepomuk. His father, Johannes Hummel, was a violinist and music teacher who served in the household orchestra of Count Grassalkovich and later as orchestra director at the Pressburg Theatre before becoming music director at the military academy in Wartberg (now Senec, Slovakia) around 1780. Following the dissolution of this institution under Joseph II's reforms, the family relocated to Vienna in late 1786 or early 1787, where Johannes became music director at the Theater auf der Wieden and later at the Apollo-Tanzsaal. His mother, Margarethe Sommer Hummel, was the widow of the wigmaker Josef Ludwig. The couple married just four months before his birth.

Hummel was a child prodigy. At the age of eight, he was offered music lessons by the classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was impressed with his ability. Hummel was taught and housed by Mozart for two years free of charge. He made his first concert appearance at the age of nine, at one of Mozart's concerts.

Music

Hummel's music took a different direction from that of Beethoven. Looking forward, Hummel stepped into modernity through pieces such as his Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor, Op. 81, cherished by Robert Schumann, and his Fantasy, Op. 18, which would have a major influence for Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy, for piano. These pieces are examples where Hummel may be seen to both challenge the classical harmonic structures and to stretch the sonata form.

His main oeuvre is for the piano, on which instrument he was one of the great virtuosi of his day. He wrote eight piano concertos, a double concerto for violin and piano, ten piano sonatas, eight piano trios, a piano quartet, two piano septets, a piano quintet, and four hand piano music. Of his eight piano concertos the first two are early compositions (S. 4/WoO 24 and S. 5) and the later six were numbered and published with opus numbers (Opp. 36, 85 (number 2 in A minor), 89, 110, 113, and posth), his often performed Piano Concerto No. 5 in Ab Op 113.

Influence

While in Germany, Hummel published A Complete Theoretical and Practical Course of Instruction on the Art of Playing the Piano Forte (Anweisung zum Pianofortespiel, 1828). It sold thousands of copies within days of its publication and brought about a new style of fingering and of playing ornaments.

Later nineteenth-century pianistic technique was influenced by Hummel, through his instruction of Carl Czerny who later taught Franz Liszt. Czerny had transferred to Hummel after studying three years with Beethoven. Liszt knew and admired Hummel deeply and often performed his works, a particular favourite being the Septet Op. 74.

Hummel's influence also can be seen in the early works of Felix Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin, and Robert Schumann. The shadow of Hummel's Piano Concerto in B minor as well as his Piano Concerto in A minor may be particularly perceived in Chopin's concertos. This is unsurprising, considering that Chopin must have heard Hummel on one of the latter's concert tours to Poland and Russia, and that Chopin kept Hummel's piano concertos in his active repertoire. Harold C.……