Talk:Johann Nepomuk Hummel

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[edit] My recent copyedit

What does this fragment mean? Looking forward, Hummel stepped into modernity through pieces like his Sonata in F sharp minor, op. 81 and his Fantasy, op. 18 for piano. These pieces both overstep Romanticism, reaching into something closer to 20th century atonality, challenging the classical harmonic structures and breaking the sonata form. I changed "breaking" to "stretching". Can we have a reference for the atonality bit? Op. 81 certainly doesn't sound very close to 20th century atonality to me! I removed the clause from the article to here, pending explanation. --RobertG ♬ talk 10:30, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I also removed that Hummel's death clos[ed] an era that has become known as the Vienna Classic. Is the classical music era known as "Vienna Classic"? Also, this seems to me rather black-and-white: is there a general consensus that the classical era closed on the 17th October 1837? Some think that Hummel had already rather turned his back on Mozartian "classicism" by the time of his Op. 81. --RobertG ♬ talk 10:30, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Although Hummel died famous and (to all appearances) secured of immortality, his perfection condemned him to oblivion at the onrush of the Romantic period. His perfection condemned him to oblivion? Sorry, I didn't understand that - could it be clarified? --RobertG ♬ talk 10:30, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd interpret "his perfection condemned him to oblivion" as saying that his classical ideas were considered old-fashioned in the romantic period, so his music was forgotten. Graham/pianoman87 talk 13:11, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
What I meant when I put the wikify tag on the article were that many of the external links needed descriptions. I was short of time, and was going to return to that later. Graham/pianoman87 talk 13:13, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


The article makes Hummel sound quite advanced and radical: his mandolin concerto in G is throughly Mozartean nevertheless. --08:20, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


Can someone provide a citation for the article's assertion that Haydn wrote a sonata in A-flat for Hummel? The implication is that this occurred while the two were in London, and none of the three sonatas that Haydn is commonly regarded to have written in London is in A-flat. A Hoboken number would be nice...? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aab91030 (talk • contribs) 22:50, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Cane we have a reference for the date of composition of the F-sharp minor sonata? It was published in 1819, one year after the Hammerklavier. It is worth comparing the slow movements of the two sonatas: the ornamental style used in both is typical of Hummel and Field but not of Beethoven, who appears if anything to be imitating Hummel's style (and transcending it). It is also worth comparing the finale of that sonata with Schubert, who does appear to have learned from Hummel (and acknowledged this in the dedication mentioned in this article). Charles Rosen comments on the influence of the F-minor sonata on Chopin (in The Romantic Generation). Rather than say that Hummel's music looks forward, would it not be more accurate to say that his music was widely imitated and hugely influential, even if nowadays we know the imitators better than the original? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.205.118 (talk) 14:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Symphony

What does this actually mean? "The conspicuous lack of the symphony among Hummel's works may be explained by the fact that he was puzzled by Beethoven's innovations in that field."

The fact that Hummel did not compose a symphony could be because he was puzzled (i.e. did not understand) what Beethoven was doing with the symphony. I wish I could word that less clumsily ... Graham87 10:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hummel's Works Page

I just created a new page to list the works of Hummel. A Wikipedia page is better than a PDF. Here is the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Johann_Nepomuk_Hummel . Make sure to contribute! - Gus (T, C) 2007-07-20 04:00Z 04:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Johann von Nepomuk Hummel's Christian Name

Although the article rightly describes Hummel as an Austrian, "Jan Nepomuk" is given as an alternative because his native town is today the capital of Slovakia. Hummel, however, was himself an ethnic German who was taken to live in Vienna at an early age. NO ONE ever called him Jan during his lifetime; certainly HE never called himself that. He signed 'J.N. Hummel', which is what he is called in his published scores. He did not speak Czech or certainly Slovak, an unwritten dialect at the time. He was simply not a Slovak!

Anyway, his name would be Jan Nepomucký in Czech, not Jan Nepomuk.

Bratislava (a name made up in the Nineteenth Century) was called Pressburg in German and Pozsony in Hungarian. It was the capital of Hungary when Hummel was born.

He really ought NOT to be in the list of Slovak composers.Tantris

[edit] This article reads badly

The wording in this article is not clear, so I put a cleanup template on it. Also, he was renowned for being strikingly ugly. There is no mention of it in this article.--Filll 14:47, 14 November 2007 (UTC)