Author Description

"Johann Nepomuk Hummel: A Musician's Life and World is not only a book about a great artist whom history seems to have forgotten, although that would have been reason enough to write one. It is also about the many worlds in which he lived. Hummel flourished during one of the most dynamic periods in music history and was at the center of the transformation from the classical to the romantic style of playing and writing music. As Mozart's most famous student, Haydn's protégé, and Beethoven's friend and chief competitor, he was the ultimate classicist. Hummel the romantic, however, exerted a powerful influence on the next generation of composers, notably Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, and Chopin ... This is the first English-language book to consider the entirety of Hummel's career" -- Back cover.