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Piano Concerto No. 2 (Hummel)

Johann Nepomuk Hummel's Piano Concerto No. 2 in A minor, Op. 85 was written in 1816 and published in Vienna in 1821.[1]

Unlike his earlier piano concerti, which closely followed the model of Mozart's, it is written in a proto-Romantic style that anticipates the later stylistic developments of composers such as Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt and Felix Mendelssohn.[2] In this regard, it is similar to the slightly later Piano Concerto No. 3.

It was considered a showpiece of its time by pianists such as Robert Schumann.[3]

Scoring

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The concerto is scored for piano, flute, two oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings.

Movements

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The work is composed in traditional three movement form. There is a solo transition in the second movement leading into the Rondo without pause.

Influence

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Although Hummel's music, seen as essentially Mozartian in style, had fallen out of fashion by the 1830s, the A minor concerto nonetheless exercised considerable influence over a number of works that helped to usher in the Romantic style. Frédéric Chopin, who had played the Hummel concerti, drew from elements of the A minor concerto in his own piano concerti.[4]

Musicologist Mark Kroll has suggested that Chopin's piano concerti in general were influenced by those of Hummel.[5] The A minor concerto da camera of Charles-Valentin Alkan has also been noted for its debt to Hummel's style of writing for the keyboard.[6]

While Robert Schumann was critical of much of Hummel's work as a composer,[7] he had made a close study of the A minor concerto in 1828[8] and considered it one of the works (along with the F-sharp minor piano sonata) of his "heyday".[9] And in his own A minor concerto, Schumann makes reference to aspects of Hummel's virtuosic style.[10]

Notes

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  1. ^ Mikio Tao, Works Catalogue of Hummel, [1] (pdf)
  2. ^ MF Humphries, The Piano Concertos of Johann Nepomuk Hummel Dissertation (Northwestern University, 1957)
  3. ^ Stefaniak, Alexander (2016-09-19). Schumann's Virtuosity: Criticism, Composition, and Performance in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-02209-7.
  4. ^ Chopin: The Piano Concertos, John Rink, Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0521446600, pp. 59 & 65.
  5. ^ Kroll, Mark (2007). Johann Nepomuk Hummel: A Musician's Life and World. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-8108-5920-3.
  6. ^ Structural Novelty and Tradition in the Early Romantic Piano Concerto, p.116 ISBN 1576470008
  7. ^ Mark Kroll, Johann Nepomuk Hummel: A Musician's Life and World, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007, ISBN 0810859203, pp. 275-78
  8. ^ Schumann, Hummel, and "The Clarity of a Well-Planned Composition", Eric Frederick Jensen, Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, T. 40, Fasc. 1/3 (1999), pp. 59- 70
  9. ^ NZfM, 1840, Schumann, "Concertstücke und Concerte für Pianoforte" p. 39 "...ein Werk aus seiner Blüthenzeit, der das A-moll-Konzert..."
  10. ^ Macdonald, Claudia. "Schumann's earliest compositions and performances." Journal of Musicological Research 7.2-3 (1987): 259-283, PAGE NUMBER & DOI MISSING

References

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  • M.F. Humphries, The Piano Concertos of Johann Nepomuk Hummel, PhD Dissertation (Northwestern University, 1957)
  • B.H. Kim, Johann Nepomuk Hummel and His Contribution to Piano Music and the Art of Playing the Piano (University of Rochester, 1967)
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